


go brave in to the night

by LadyAlice101



Series: Pure as harmony [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Autism, Divorced Sansa, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Flawed characters, Fluff, Jon Snow and the Starks Are Not Related, Kinda, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of past abuse, Mutual Pining, Single Dad!Jon, Slow Burn, babysitter!sansa, builder!jon, fashion designer!sansa, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!, jon has twins, past relationships jon/ygritte, previously married sansa/joffrey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 88,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21658747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAlice101/pseuds/LadyAlice101
Summary: “Sansa could probably help.”Jon furrows his brow, glancing over to catch a quick look at Lyra and Will still playing while he tries to think if Arya has ever mentioned a Sansa before.Coming up with nothing, he finally says, “Who’s Sansa?”//Jon moves back to Winterfell so he can get some more support with his kids, from a new school and from his friends Robb and Arya.Sansa moves back to Winterfell after her ex-husband dies, seeking the safety of home.It becomes a whole lot more than that.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Series: Pure as harmony [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598599
Comments: 991
Kudos: 1294





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh.... yes. yes I am starting another wip. but I have a l o t of this written, and I realised if I want it to coincide with Christmas, I have to start posting. so ... enjoy!

“Sansa could probably help.”

Jon furrows his brow, glancing over to catch a quick look at Lyra and Will still playing while he tries to think if Arya has ever mentioned a Sansa before.

Coming up with nothing, he finally says, “Who’s Sansa?”

Robb scoffs from where he sits at the picnic table, piling a cracker high with cheese and ham. “Who’s Sansa?” he repeats, rolling his eyes. “Our sister, Sansa.”

Jon frowns further, sure that he must be just be misremembering. He tries to picture her, but comes up with nothing, tries to think of what she does or where she lives or anything of the sort, but not a single thing comes to mind.

“I didn’t know you had another sister,” Jon says finally, because that feels true.

“ _Sansa_ ,” Robb says again, as if repeating her name will encourage a memory to jump out. Jon shakes his head. “Yeah, you know, she moved down to King’s Landing almost ten years ago. She used to come back all the time before mum and dad . . . but she’s not been back in Winterfell in almost three years now. She works at that fashion house – uhm, you know, the one with the . . .”

“Louis Vuitton,” Arya supplies, eyes hard and critical as they look Jon up and down.

Jon shrugs again. None of this sounds familiar, and he’s fairly sure he’d remembered something as impressive as that job; or he’d remember something as unusual as one of their family members essentially disappearing.

Jon shakes his head.

“ . . . surely we’ve mentioned her before,” Robb says, voice weaker this time, as it’s his turn to frown at the table. He drops his cracker onto his plate, uneaten.

Jon is surer now than before that they hadn’t. It makes him feel rather uncertain about entrusting his kids to a sister that these two have never talked about in the years he’s known them. There’s likely a reason that he doesn’t know about her, and he doesn’t want to know what that reason is; nor does he want her looking after the two people who mean everything to him.

“I’ll figure something out,” Jon says finally, trying not to be indelicate as he looks back over to the playground. Lyra and Will are sitting at the top of the slide, laughing loudly as Lyra points at the bottom of the slide and tries to cajole Will into going down. “I’ll find someone. Or we’ll just stay in Castle Black. We don’t have to move to Winterfell.”

Arya rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. You _know_ you need to move down here. That school up there - . . . Will needs more help than they can give, and Lyra needs more stimulation than they can give. Besides, they’ve already been accepted here, and you’re about to sign a lease! Stop talking nonsense.”

Jon presses his thumbs into his eyes, lips turning down. “Aye, but that was when I had a nanny. Now that Robin can’t –“

“Yes, but you have us,” Arya interrupts, folding her hands atop each other on the table. “That’s why you chose Winterfell. Robb has already said he’ll pick them up on Monday’s and Tuesday’s, you’ll get them on Wednesday’s, and I can drop them off Monday to Wednesday. So you only need someone for two days of drop offs and pick ups. You’ll find someone, and if you can’t, Sansa can do it.”

Jon takes a sip from his coke, trying to avoid answering for as long as possible. “I suppose I can find someone. Two days isn’t many.”

“Or Sansa can help,” Robb says, smiling, obviously trying to be helpful.

Jon winces, wondering how to word this without sounding like he doesn’t trust their sister.

“Look, it’s just that I’ve never met Sansa,” Jon says. “You know how thoroughly I check my carers, and I just . . .”

He sighs, and takes another drink.

“Sansa is moving back to Winterfell in two weeks,” Arya says, after a rather awkward silence has settled over the table. “You’ll be settled in four, and the kids don’t start school for another six. Once you’re all moved in, you’ll be able to meet her, introduce her to Lyra and Will, and if you don’t like her, you don’t like her. You’ll have plenty of time to find someone else.”

Will rushes over, saving Jon from having to answer Arya’s fairly logical proposal. Jon isn’t sure why it doesn’t sit well with him, but Arya is right. If it doesn’t work, he can find someone else.

Will stops at the end of the table, smiling widely and jumping up and down.

“Yaya, do you like me?” he asks, still smiling.

Jon shifts on his chair to reach over and grasp Will under his arms, picking him up and putting him on his lap.

“Arya likes you, buddy,” Jon reassures, picking up a piece of cheese to pass to Will.

Will takes it eagerly with both hands, despite it being a small slice, and starts to chew on one side. Before he can finish his bite, he repeats, “Yaya, do you like me?”

Jon knows better than to think that Lyra has told him that Arya doesn’t like him; this is a question Will repeats to all adults he knows, for his own little reasons. Jon is yet to figure out what those reasons are, but he’s sure that one day he will.

“I _love_ you, Will,” Arya corrects easily. “You’re my little man.”

It’s too many words, Jon already knows. Arya likely does too, but it never stops her from trying to assure Will.

Will goes quiet for a moment, eats the rest of his cheese, then says again, “Do you like me?”

“Yeah, Will,” Arya says, and knows better this time. “I like you.”

“We’re going to go home soon,” Jon tells Will, because this is something else he’s learnt over time; it’s much easier for Jon to convince Will that he has to do something if he’s had advance warning, and it’s easier for Will to understand what’s happening around him if someone is always keeping him up to date. “Alright?”

Will doesn’t respond, just reaches over for more cheese, but Jon knows that Will has heard, and is processing it in his own way. Will stacks three pieces of cheese on the dirty table, and Jon quickly picks them up and moves his plate over to put the cheese down on. Will waits patiently, and as soon as Jon has placed the cheese somewhere safe and sanitary, Will picks up the top piece and eats it, then settles back against Jon’s chest and grabs Jon’s hands to wind around his waist.

That’s one of Jon’s favourite of Will’s quirks: when Will wants to sit in his lap with his father’s arms around him, he will silently and forcibly make it happen. Lyra and Will are five now, and Jon knows it won’t last forever, so he embraces the gesture eagerly each time.

Lyra has preoccupied herself with the monkey bars, but they’ve been here for a couple hours now; when Jon says they have to go, there’ll be little fuss from his twins.

“Why is your sister coming back to Winterfell?” Jon asks, bouncing his knee to Will’s absolute delight.

Despite his preoccupation with his son, Jon still catches the wary glance between Robb and Arya.

“What?” he asks, feeling a spiral of unease in his stomach.

“She’s been planning to for a while,” Robb starts. “She’s been waiting for her divorce to be finalised.”

Jon can’t help but glance up at them both, surprised. “She was married?”

“Was,” Arya says softly, biting her lip.

“And the divorce is finalised?” Jon prods, unsure why they’re being so jumpy.

Robb looks away, finally eating the piled up cracker he’d discarded earlier.

“It didn’t need to be,” Arya says finally. “He died.”

Jon’s heart squeezes painfully, a dull thump in his chest. It’s been almost three years since his own ex-wife passed away, and separated for almost all of Will and Lyra’s life as they may have been, Jon still wishes she were alive. He and Ygritte hadn’t been suited for each other in the end, but she was still the mother of his children. He wishes she could have seen her children grow up, if only because he knows the terrible burden that comes with a childhood of only one parent.

“Oh.”

“It was different than you and - . . .” Robb trails off awkwardly, then clears his throat. “Joffrey was never –“

“It’s alright,” Jon says, though it isn’t, not really. He tightens his arm around Will’s belly, just for a moment, and lets out a big exhale. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

Even from behind her LV sunglasses and the tinted windows of her BMW, Sansa can see the exact moment Arya’s face dips down into a frown: it’s when her red-bottomed stiletto shoe settles on the gravel as she steps out of her car.

Arya’s frown only deepens as more of Sansa is revealed. Sansa is well aware she doesn’t fit in here, not anymore, not like this. But with a closet full of LV clothes and little else, this plain white blouse and black slacks were about as toned down as she could get. She could have gone without the thick black belt and Louboutins, of course, but they tie the outfit together, and these pants are too long for flat shoes, anyway. The hem would have been dragging through the mud, and plain as they may be, they’re still thousand dollar pants.

She’ll have to go shopping, Sansa is frightfully aware.

But, somehow, shopping had seemed like the least important thing while she’d been packing up her life in King’s Landing as quickly as possible.

“Arya,” Sansa greets, unsure if she should hug her sister.

They’ve kept in contact over these last few years, more so since their parents passed, but they’d always had a strained relationship as children, which had only worsened when Sansa moved to King’s Landing. They text, of course, but Sansa isn’t sure of the last time she actually heard her sister’s voice.

Probably in the months just after the funeral.

“Sansa,” Arya says, looking just as uncertain.

Sansa decides to break the tension first, winding her arms around her sister’s shoulders. Arya has always been much shorter than Sansa, but in her heels the difference is startling.

“We’re glad you’re home,” Arya says as she pulls away. “Robb had to go and get the boys. Rickon’s car wouldn’t start this morning and for some reason he decided it would be best to wait until _now_ to tell us.”

A small smile pulls up one corner of her mouth. She’s missed her family terribly, particularly in these last few years.

It feels surreal to finally be back here in Winterfell, back _home,_ and Sansa can’t wait to see all her siblings.

“Have you been in?” Sansa asks, jutting her chin at the large house that towers before them.

Arya sighs. “No. Not since . . . I think you should stay with one of us tonight. I don’t even know if the water or electricity has been turned back on yet.”

“That . . . would be really nice, thank you.”

Arya pulls her phone from her back pocket. “I’ll text Robb, tell him to meet us at mine instead of here. That cool?”

“Yeah,” Sansa agrees easily, turning away from their family home. She’s glad to have just one more night to steel herself before she goes back in there. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

“Nice shoes, Sans!”

Sansa smiles as soon as she hears her brother’s voice. She pushes herself from the stool she’s sat on at Arya’s dining table, right as she hears feet thundering down the hallway.

“Yeah, whatever Bran!” she hears Rickon retort. “You aren’t going to be her favourite brother no matter how much you compliment her shoes.”

“Well, now,” Sansa teases as she catches sight of Rickon. He’s so much taller than she remembers him, slightly taller than her. “They _are_ rather pretty.”

“Oh, shut up,” Rickon says, smiling so widely his dimples are showing, and then he wraps her in a hug so big he lifts her from her feet and spins her around.

Sansa laughs in delight as he sets her back down. “Gods, Rickon, you’ve gotten so big!”

Rickon puffs out his chest dramatically, and flexes his biceps. “I’ve been going to the gym with Robb.”

“Congrats, you’re a himbo,” Bran says drily as he enters the room, Robb pushing his wheelchair.

“Bran,” Sansa greets, fondness welling up in her so quickly her throat feels clogged. She cups his cheeks and leans down to kiss his forehead, lingering for a moment.

“Have I gotten big, too?” he asks, a highly amused grin on his face.

“Your hair has,” she replies, running her fingers through it. “Seriously, when was the last time you got a haircut?”

“Bran doesn’t get haircuts,” Robb interjects, and once Sansa has her eyes on him she can’t look away. “He says he likes to keep it natural. Something about vibing with the trees.”

“You’ve definitely nailed that look, then,” Sansa tells Bran, but she’s still looking at Robb.

He looks . . . good. She’d seen him the most recently, of course, when he’d come down to King’s Landing for her, but that time had been rather . . . fraught. She doesn’t remember a whole lot of it.

Before then, the argument they’d had at the funeral had almost ruined their relationship forever, both of them saying things they’d regretted and had apologised for over the phone, crying, but by then Sansa had been back in King’s Landing.

She had already decided to leave Joffrey, at that point, but the last thing she’d needed while mourning her parents was her older brother telling her that she’d made a foolish mistake marrying Joffrey, and that the rest of their family didn’t need to be punished with his presence for the stupid decisions she’d made as a teenager.

Robb envelopes her in a hug, his arms strong around her, and Sansa buries her nose in his shoulder, fighting back her tears.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers into her hair. Even if they’d reconciled over the phone, this is the first time she’s seen him since the funeral. “I should never have . . .”

“It’s done,” she says back, nails digging into the shirt stretched tightly across his back. “It’s okay. I’m okay. And I’m back now, and we never have to talk about that prick again.”

When Robb pulls away, he still looks worried, that crease between his brow that Sansa knows intimately from their childhood.

“Seriously,” she reassures, and kisses his cheek. “I could never have come back without you.”

Robb shakes his head. “I should have come for you much sooner.”

Sansa rolls her eyes. “This divorce was two years in the making. If you’d come any earlier, I think he might have killed us both.”

Robb’s face darkens at that, so Sansa squeezes his arms and turns to her other siblings in an attempt to lighten the mood. They’re all looking at her with worry, so Sansa claps her hands together.

“Stop that, all of you,” she instructs.

“Wanna talk about it?” Arya asks.

“There’s not much to say,” Sansa says. “I should never have married him, but I did, and now we’re divorced.”

“And he’s dead,” Rickon adds, though Sansa doesn’t know if that’s a helpful or unhelpful thing to say.

“May his soul rot in Hell,” Sansa responds drily. “Now, pizza for dinner. My shout.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “His kids are cute,” Sansa comments, to hide the fact that it is not the kids she’s staring at. 
> 
> No, she can’t tear her eyes away from their father. She can’t even see his face and he’s one of the most attractive men she’s ever seen. He’s got shoulder length curls, dark and blowing loose in this wind – and, oh, fuck, the way he tugs on the ends in frustration . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay! have them meeting for the first time! plus some cute sansa & Lyra interactions!

Jon feels like he could rip his own hair out.

He’s never minded Moana, not really, and he’ll even admit to some of the songs being catchy. But they’ve been on the road for four hours now, and there’s only so much of the same kids songs he can take.

He’d never change the music, of course, because this movie is Will’s favourite and even Lyra had been happy to listen to it despite the fact that Jon can hardly ever get the two to agree on these types of things – but, still, Jon could do with some quiet, or something.

“How much farther now?” Lyra asks.

With a glance in his rearview, he can see that Lyra has set down her book and is peering at him curiously.

“Why don’t you tell me?” he responds, taking the opportunity to turn down the music a bit.

Now that it’s quieter, he can hear Will singing along to the words; or, at least, the words he knows. He skips over every few words, and then hums a sentence, and then goes back to singing what he can.

Lyra sighs loudly. “Can’t you go faster? If you just went about 10 kilometers faster, we could be there in fifty-three minutes, instead of an hour.”

“It’s true,” Jon agrees, even though he has no idea if it would cut off seven minutes of their travel time. “But the speed limit on the highway is only 100 kilometers an hour. We’re not allowed to go any faster.”

Lyra sighs again. “If the fairy godmother from Cinderella were real, she’d be able to get us there faster.”

“I don’t think she grants wishes, does she?”

“She grants _needs,”_ Lyra corrects him, picking her book back up. “And I _need_ to get to Winterfell or else I’ll _die.”_

Will goes quiet suddenly, while Jon tries to hold in a chuckle, and then he hears Will’s small voice say, “Don’t die, Lyra.”

“I won’t die,” Lyra reassures, “if dad drives faster and gets us there sooner.”

Will whimpers, and Jon hears him shift in his seat.

“No, Will, stop it!” Lyra says. “Dad, Will is pulling at my book!”

Jon rubs the palm of his hand in his eye, then puts the blinker of his car on and pulls over into an emergency bay. He takes his seatbelt off and turns in his seat to face the twins.

“Will, baby, don’t touch Lyra’s book, okay? We talked about this, didn’t we?”

Will looks at Jon with his big blue eyes, obviously trying to think through Jon’s instruction, and after a few moments he does as Jon asked and let’s go of the book.

“And, Lyra, don’t say things like that. Just like you don’t like Will touching your books, he doesn’t like you saying you want to die.”

Lyra narrows her eyes at Jon, lowering her books slightly so she can stare at him over the top, and Jon accepts the challenge and doesn’t back down.

Lyra breaks before Jon does – she might have inherited her stubbornness from her mother, but Jon was always more stubborn than Ygritte – and turns to Will.

“I’m sorry, Will,” Lyra says. “I don’t really want to die. I _won’t_ die, even if it takes us forever to get to Winterfell.”

“It won’t take us forever,” Jon corrects, turning back in his seat.

“No, but it will take sixty-four minutes, and that’s practically forever.”

“How could you possibly know it will take sixty-four minutes?” Jon asks, looking back over his shoulder at her. “You don’t know what the traffic is like.”

Lyra raises an unimpressed brow at him, then points past Jon and to the screen in the dash of his car, which is proudly sporting the directions and the approximate time until they reach their destination.

“Yeah, alright,” Jon says, then buckles his seatbelt. “No more distractions then, you two. We don’t want it to take _longer_ than sixty-four minutes.”

“So, who is this guy again?” Sansa asks, trying to be discreet as she looks around Arya’s messy truck. There’s fast food bags and candy wrappers strewn everywhere, and perhaps she should be less put out by the mess than she is, considering she’s been knee deep in restoring their parents’ house for the past two weeks, but it’s still rather frightful.

Sansa could never imagine treating her car like this.

“He’s a family friend.”

Sansa raises a brow.

“He’s Lyanna’s kid.”

Sansa blinks, surprised. “Lyanna, dad’s childhood best friend, Lyanna?”

“Yeah. He moved to Winterfell when he was about twenty, met a girl, fell in love, and they moved back to Castle Black, which is where he grew up. The woman, Ygritte, got pregnant, and after she had the twins she and Jon split up. Six years ago now.”

“And he’s bringing the kids here now?” Sansa clarifies. “How does Ygritte feel about that?”

Arya sighs, eyes focussed on the road. “She died, Sans. About three years ago. The kids started school last year, but they both have . . . special needs, and the primary school at Castle Black just wasn’t cutting it. So Jon’s moving them all down here for the new school year.”

Sansa purses her lips, unsure what to say. It all sounds terribly tragic, and she almost wishes she hadn’t asked. It sounds like too much pressure for one young man to handle.

But, then again, Sansa knows all about carrying burdens that should never have been yours.

“Robb and I promised him we’d be there for the moving truck,” Arya continues after a moment. “He and the kids should be about an hour behind.”

“I feel like I only just did all this moving and unpacking shit,” Sansa says, trying to lighten the mood.

Arya laughs slightly. “Yeah, that’s ‘cuz we fuckin’ just _did._ Seriously, how much shit did you need to bring?”

Sansa sniffs, and turns up her nose. “I was as brutal as I could be.”

“And still you didn’t bring any appropriate clothes,” Arya teases. “How are those Target jeans treating you?”

“They’re awful,” Sansa commiserates, pulling at a thread that’s already coming loose from a seam down her thigh. “Seriously, once that house is done, I think I’ll have to go back to dressing better.”

“Designer clothes are one way to get noticed,” Arya says wryly.

“They make me feel comfortable,” Sansa defends, crossing her arms. “Confident.”

Arya sighs, fingers tapping against the wheel. “Yeah, I know, Sans. And you can wear what you want, but – people don’t dress like that here.”

“I don’t care if people stare,” Sansa says stubbornly, except - . . . well, she does, even if she wishes she didn’t. It’s been enough to have her in these drab clothes for the past two weeks, and Sansa wishes she could retain the confidence she’d had as a girl to stand out in a crowd. In King’s Landing, she would have stood out more in the clothes she’s decked in now, and being Joffrey’s wife – as well as a designer at Louis Vuitton – had always demanded a certain level of fashion. Sansa hardly even knows what casual _means_ anymore, but she hopes it isn’t this.

Nevertheless, Sansa knows she needs lay low, at least for a little while. Winterfell is small, perhaps too small at times. She knows word will have gotten around that she’s back, and Sansa can’t have them thinking on her presence too much. She’s moved back here for a reason, and dragging all that _shit_ from King’s Landing is not it.

The sisters go quiet for the short remainder of the drive, and when Arya pulls up on the side of the road, she whispers, “Oh, _fuck.”_

Sansa looks over to where Arya is staring and catches sight of a car parked in the driveway of a nice house, all its doors wide open. There are two kids tumbling around in the grass, and a man standing on the curb with his back to the road, phone at his ear and gesturing wildly.

“They weren’t supposed to be here yet,” Arya explains, then glances at the clock on her dash. “And the moving truck _is.”_

“His kids are cute,” Sansa comments, to hide the fact that it is _not_ the kids she’s staring at.

No, she can’t tear her eyes away from their _father._ She can’t even see his face and he’s one of the most attractive men she’s ever seen. He’s got shoulder length curls, dark and blowing loose in this wind – and, oh, _fuck,_ the way he tugs on the ends in frustration . . .

His white shirt is tight across his back, and even from here she can see the definition of his biceps. He’s wearing a belt, which Sansa desperately wants to hear unbuckled and pulled from his jeans – and then maybe tied around her wrists - and those motherfucking _jeans . . ._ They cup his arse so nicely, and are tight around his thighs, and dear gods, with how flattering they are, Sansa can definitely tell they’re _not_ from Target.

_Stop it, Sansa_ , she says to herself, but she still can’t tear her eyes from his arse.

“So, about the kids,” Arya says quickly, interrupting Sansa’s perv session. “Lyra is, like, a child genius, so you’ll get on best with her if you don’t ever lie to her. She’ll catch you out fast, and I speak from experience when I say she’ll make you feel like a fool.”

Sansa thinks Arya should have filled her in on this _before_ they arrived, so Sansa would have time to ask questions, but she supposes she can’t really blame her considering they both thought they had another hour.

“And Will . . . he’s just been diagnosed with autism. So just be clear and concise, and be patient with him.”

“I would have been anyway,” Sansa says, frowning. “He’s a _child.”_

Arya eyes her for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, you’ll be fine. Come on then, it looks like Jon is about to have an apoplexy.”

Arya jumps out of the truck and shuts her door, and Sansa takes the second alone to brush her stray hair behind her ear, wishing she’d done something more with it than just a braid. And, gods, she wishes she weren’t wearing these unflattering clothes, but – _you’re helping him move,_ Sansa reminds herself, rolling her eyes. _What, you think you could wear a nice flowery dress?_

Sansa follows Arya’s lead and jumps from the truck.

“Yaya!” Two little voices cry.

“No, not on the road!” Jon shouts, crouching down to catch the little boy and wind his arm around his waist to stop him before his feet can touch the road.

Gods, even his forearms are fucking perfect.

Jon glances over his shoulder at them, mouthing _sorry_ and then turning back around.

“No, I _understand,_ but I paid extra to have this delivered _today_ . . . no I don’t want my money back, I want the moving truck here . . . I have two kids, I can’t wait until _Tuesday.”_

Arya frowns dramatically at Sansa, shaking her head, and then she scoops up the little boy, Will, from Jon’s arm. He lets her do so easily, standing back up and continuing with his conversation.

It sounds extremely stressful, and Sansa doesn’t envy him.

Arya is busy blowing kisses into Will’s belly, and the girl, Lyra, has rushed over as well, shouting that she wants a go.

Will laughs loudly, a beautiful little sound that makes Sansa smile as well, and Arya sets him down to pick Lyra up and kiss her tummy, too.

“Lyra, this is my sister, Sansa,” Arya says, manoeuvring Lyra around so she sits on Arya’s hip.

“Hello, Sansa,” Lyra greets. “My name is Lyra Snow. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi, Lyra,” Sansa says, stuffing her hands in her back pockets, unsure what to do with them. “Are you excited about moving?”

Lyra sighs heavily, and turns her nose up. “It took us thirteen more minutes for us to get here than dad said it would. I’m too cross with him to be excited.”

Sansa smiles slightly, glad she had to warning on Lyra’s intelligence. “I’d be cross with him, too. But Winterfell is great, you should be excited.”

“I’ve been here before,” Lyra informs her, tone prim. Sansa suddenly understands what Arya meant about the girl making you feel like a fool. “I suppose it’s alright. It’s warmer than Castle Black.”

“I just moved here from King’s Landing,” Sansa says, deciding to go one step past not lying to Lyra, and treating her like she’d treat another adult. “It’s _way_ too hot down there, so I’m excited about moving here.”

Lyra looks thoughtful for a moment, then leans down to whisper something in Arya’s ear.

Arya smiles briefly, and nods, then says, “Lyra wants me to give her to you.”

“Oh,” Sansa says, surprised. “Alright.”

Lyra extends her arms out, and Sansa bites her lips, uncertain for a moment, and then just copies what Arya did. Lyra does the rest of the work, hitching her legs around Sansa’s waist and resting her arms on Sansa’s shoulders.

“Why did _you_ move here?” Lyra asks, while Arya kneels down to Will, who has crouched down and is staring at something rather intently.

“I grew up here,” Sansa replies.

“Then why did you move away? How long have you been gone?”

“Well,” Sansa says slowly, trying to figure out what’s appropriate to say and what isn’t. “I moved down to King’s Landing when I was eighteen, ten years ago now. I moved so I could marry a boy, but he and I don’t get along anymore so I’ve moved home.”

“Oh, did you get divorced?” Lyra asks. She isn’t looking at Sansa’s face anymore, but at her hair, and the girl casually leans over so she can grab the end of Sansa’s braid. “Your hair is very long.”

“Yes, it is,” Sansa says, glad to be offered the change of topic.

Lyra plays with the end of it for a few moments, and then, without looking up, says, “Well? Did you?”

Considering their own situation with a deceased parent, Sansa decides she shouldn’t tell the girl that Joffrey recently passed. It probably wouldn’t be appropriate, anyway.

“Yeah, we did,” Sansa replies.

“Do you have kids? Did they move back here with you, like us?”

“No, I don’t have kids,” Sansa says. “I always wanted them, though.”

“Lyra,” the girl’s father interrupts, finally hanging up his phone. “You can’t just ask people if they’re divorced.”

Sansa’s vaguely surprised he’d even been listening to their conversation enough to know that Lyra has asked about Sansa’s relationship status.

“Why not?” Lyra asks, still tugging on Sansa’s braid.

“Because it’s insensitive,” Jon replies.

Sansa wonders what six year old knows the word insensitive, but Lyra must, because she just sighs again and mutters, “Adults have so many rules.”

“It’s alright,” Sansa tries to reassure.

“See!” Lyra says, finally looking up at her father. “Sansa doesn’t mind.”

Sansa winces, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. She’d only meant to reassure Jon that she wasn’t offended, not undermine a lesson he was trying to teach his daughter.

“That doesn’t mean that everyone wouldn’t.”

Lyra tuts, and shakes her head. “Don’t use double negatives, dad. It’s bad English.”

Sansa blinks, and turns to stare at Lyra, taken aback. Arya had said _child genius,_ but a lot of people say that about kids they know. Gods, even Sansa wouldn’t know when to correct someone on their English. 

But Jon is obviously used to it. “Don’t change the subject, Lyra. It’s bad manners.”

Lyra harrumphs, and lets Sansa’s braid fall down her back again.

“You can put me down, now,” Lyra tells her.

Sansa follows the instruction quickly, vaguely scared of what Lyra might reprimand _her_ for if she didn’t.

Lyra runs off quickly, back over to Arya and Will, and suddenly Sansa is left relatively alone with this insanely hot _family friend._

“Sorry about her,” Jon says, and without the buffer of his daughter he’s suddenly awkward, rubbing the back of his neck. “And about the phone. I’m Jon.”

“Sansa,” she greets, and takes his extended hand.

_Fuck,_ his hands are so rough, and big, and she wants to know what they’d feel like running down her back, or cupping her thighs, or squeezing her tits, or rubbing her –

“You’re already here!”

Sansa drops Jon’s hand, trying desperately not to blush as her brother interrupts them. 

Robb wraps Jon up in a big hug, clapping him on the back.

“What the heck happened?” Robb asks.

Sansa is pretty sure she’s never heard Robb use the word _heck_ in her entire life, but she supposes there’s a first time for everything. It’s a good reminder to keep her own internal curses just that – _internal._

“The moving company just called and said that there’s been a problem with the delivery,” Jon says, frustration pulling his handsome face down into a frown again. “It won’t be here until _Tuesday.”_

“Tuesday!” Lyra shouts, having overheard them. Jon winces. “But it’s _Saturday._ I can’t wait four days for my toys.”

She promptly bursts into tears, which makes Will start to cry, too, and Jon looks like he’s about to follow suit. They must all be really tired.

“Hey, come on now,” Arya and Robb rush to comfort them, each taking a twin into their arms.

Sansa stands back awkwardly. She’s been made to feel useless a lot in her short life, and she recognises the feeling now.

She’s very well aware of how much she’s missed while living in King’s Landing, how much of everyone’s life she didn’t get to be a part of. But this is such a stark reminder of what could have been; these three have created something between them, and with Jon’s kids, and Sansa can’t help but wonder how much she would have been involved if she’d been in Winterfell.

Not for the first time Sansa curses her younger self, wishing she hadn’t been so stupid as to follow Joffrey down to King’s Landing just so she could marry him.

“I can take them to get something to eat, if you’d like,” Sansa offers to Jon, unsure how else to help. Despite having wanted kids her whole life, she’s never really spent much time with them. “They look pretty tired, I can take them to mine and let them nap in my bed?”

Jon turns to her, an unreadable look in his eye. “Thanks, but they both don’t really like being in unknown places. I doubt you’d ever get them to sleep. Plus, Will can’t be unsupervised for even a second at a place like yours. Aren’t you renovating your parents’ old house?”

Sansa decides that Lyra got her sense of superiority from her father. For the second time in the space of five minutes, she’s made to feel like a fool.

“I think I’d know better than to leave a _child_ running about a work space,” she says, turning up her nose.

Jon winces. “I didn’t mean –“

“It doesn’t matter,” Sansa interrupts. “If there’s no moving truck, what do we need to do?”

“I’ve got the essentials from the kids’ bedrooms in the trunk,” Jon says. “Look, Sansa –“

“No need to stand around talking, then,” Sansa says, giving him a false smile. “Best unload what’s here. After all, they won’t be able to sleep in such an _unknown place_ without some comfort.”

Jon can’t help but feel terrible about the way he’d so obviously insulted Sansa.

It doesn’t mean he would have sent the two most precious in the world off with a stranger, but he probably could have afforded her _some_ trust. She’s Arya and Robb’s sister, and had gotten along pretty well with Lyra in the few minutes his daughter had turned her attention on the woman. She couldn’t be completely untrustworthy, even if he had a right to be wary.

In any case, he can’t believe how little tact he’d had.

Probably because she’s about the most gorgeous woman he’s ever seen, and her presence has sent him a bit tongue tied, but _still._ Her obvious attractiveness doesn’t mean he can be rude to her.

With only a few boxes of things to unload, he hardly needs all three Starks to help, but he’s immensely glad for them. He entrusts the kids to Robb and Arya while he runs to the store, because if they’re going to spend three nights without all their things then he needs to get some emergency supplies.

Sansa comes with him.

Arya had suggested it, saying that if he’s going to buy crockery he might as well just replace the worn things he has now with nicer plates, and then informs them all that Sansa’s keen designer eye will help him choose something that’s both appropriate and nice.

Jon didn’t think Sansa would agree, considering the way he’d insulted her, but she just nods and says, “If you think it will be helpful.”

Jon leaves his car at the house, so that if Arya and Robb decide to take the kids somewhere while they’re gone they’ll have the booster seats, and so Sansa drives them in Arya’s truck.

The trip has been awkward and quiet so far, as Sansa takes them out to the industrial estate of Winterfell, where a shopping complex for a variety of homewares lives.

On their way there, they pass by the street that leads to the neighbourhood that the Stark family home is in, and Jon unceremoniously blurts out, “I’m a builder.”

Sansa goes quiet for a second, and then says, “That’s nice,” as if she’s confused as to why this a topic of conversation.

Jon bites his lip, and then tries to explain. “Well, just because I know you’re doing up your parents’ house . . . if you ever needed anything, I could help out.”

“You think I can’t do it myself?”

Jon winces at the challenge in her tone. _Obviously_ he’d not meant to imply that, but he can see why she thinks he meant it like that. A beautiful woman like her, Jon thinks she’s probably rather used to men thinking her incapable of hard, hands-on work.

“It’s not that,” Jon says, trying to think of the best way to explain himself. “I just know how hard those older houses can be, and how expensive construction companies are. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Sansa goes quiet for a long while, so long that they arrive at the complex. Sansa shuts the car off, but she doesn’t make a move to get out, so Jon stays seated, too, waiting to see if she’ll say something.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally. Jon blinks, surprised. “It’s just that every time I walk into a store here, they all look at me like I couldn’t possibly know what I’m doing. And it’s made all the worse by the fact that I know that _they_ know who I am: Sansa Stark, Ned and Cat’s fancy daughter who thought herself too good for a small town. They’ve already judged me, and decided that I’d be better off south, not here trying to fix up mum and dad’s house.”

Jon isn’t sure what to say. He hardly expected Sansa to open herself up like that, or to apologise at all, really. He hadn’t meant to make her feel the need.

And now he finds himself inexplicably with the need to learn more about her, see in what other ways he and everyone else underestimates her. In the space of two hours, Jon has decided that this woman is a force to be reckoned with.

“I think it’s very admirable,” Jon says. “It’s a shame that that house has been sitting there unused for so long. And don’t listen to small town gossip. Winterfell is your home, and those people don’t know anything about what you’ve been through.”

Sansa laughs once, a bitter thing, and Jon wonders what he’s said now.

“And here I was, hoping that Arya and Robb hadn’t told you about my shitty past,” she mutters, brushing her hair behind her ear and looking out her window.

Jon turns in his seat, resting his back against his door and hitching his knee up on the seat. Sansa doesn’t turn to him, and Jon hesitates, wondering what to say to a woman who is, for all intents and purposes, a stranger.

“They only mentioned that you were married,” Jon explains quietly. “That you just got divorced, and that he recently . . .”

“Died,” Sansa supplies, still not turning to him. “And I suppose they spared you all the gruesome parts in between, all the details of how stupid I was to marry him barely out of high school, and to follow him to King’s Landing and practically cut myself off from my family?”

They had mentioned it, of course.

But –

“Would it be fair to guess that you’re aware of my past?” Jon challenges. “I’m sure they filled you in on Ygritte, and the needs of my kids.”

Sansa turns to him slowly, arms folded tightly over her chest.

“A bit,” Sansa admits.

“Do you know any of the details?” Jon questions, tilting his head. “Like how she died, or the level of support Lyra and Will need?”

Sansa shakes her head.

“I don’t know any of your details, either,” Jon assures. “I just know that I’ve offended you twice today, and that I had no intention of doing so.”

A small smile flicks up one side of her mouth, and Jon finds his gaze drawn there for a moment.

He likes her smile.

“They’re your kids, and I’m a stranger,” Sansa says, pulling on the end of her braid. “I shouldn’t have taken it so personally. They’re lovely, by the way.”

“They’re little terrors,” Jon corrects, but he can’t help but smile as he says it.

The memory of Arya and Robb suggesting Sansa take care of them a couple days a week forces its way into his mind, but before Jon can decide whether or not that’s something he actually wants to suggest, Sansa says they should go inside so they can get the shopping done.

Sansa is quick and efficient, picking out new and simple sets of crockery and plain cutlery. She makes sure to buy things on the cheaper end without him asking, which Jon appreciates, because while both Lyra and Will use ceramic plates, Will still has a tendency to break things.

She disappears for a little bit while Jon stands in front of the microwaves and wonders if he’s really going to buy a new one. His old one works fine, of course, and is still fairly new, but he can hardly feed the kids cereal three meals a day until Tuesday. And he won’t have them having takeout every night, either, but a whole new microwave seems absurd.

He still hasn’t made the decision by the time Sansa comes back, a pack of new sheets in her arms.

She turns the plastic around so he can see the picture, and it’s a lovely plain bedspread that’s white with a thick pale pink stripe across the bottom. Her smile is so wide as she shows him that Jon can’t help but smile as well.

“The sheets are on sale,” Sansa informs him, obviously excited. “Joffrey never let me buy pink bedspreads, but these are cute, aren’t they? I could use them for the master, when it’s done.”

“You should definitely get them,” Jon encourages.

“Really?” Sansa asks, and Jon’s heart breaks at the little frown that appears between her brows. She sounds both so excited and so dubious, like at any moment he’ll take the opportunity to tell her that her choice is stupid. “You think?”

“I know,” he says, and then because he wants to see her smile again, he continues, “I need some new sheets too, actually.”

Sansa does smile, stupidly and widely, and Jon’s heart flips at the sight.

“Alright,” she agrees eagerly, and puts her sheets in his trolley. “They’re on sale, you know.”

“You mentioned,” Jon says, grinning a little himself.

“Oh,” Sansa says, and the pink that dusts across her cheeks is about the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “I’ll take you over. I saw a really nice set, with blue checkers. They’d suit you, I think.”

Jon follows after her easily.

Gods, he’s halfway mad for her already.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sansa, hi, it’s Jon.” He sounds out of breath, and Sansa is struck with all kinds of dirty thoughts at the sound. “Listen, I have a huge favour to ask you.” 
> 
> “Uh, go ahead,” Sansa says, eyeing the floor line to see what nails she can find from back here. Anything to distract her from how fucking sexy Jon’s voice is. 
> 
> “The office has flooded and I have to go in, but Arya isn’t in town and Robb isn’t answering his phone, and –“ 
> 
> “I can come ‘round,” Sansa agrees quickly, eager to abandon her job. “Can you give me twenty minutes?”
> 
> “Of course,” he says, gratitude making his voice dip lower. “Thanks, Sansa, I owe you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait a bit to post this, bc I'm going through all my pre-written stuff v quickly, but last night I FINALLY got to the part where they share their pasts with each other and I'm so excited to eventually share it with you that I knew I had to bring us another chapter closer ;)

The following weeks, somehow, find Sansa around at Jon’s place more and more. At first, it’s just to help him unpack, and Arya and Robb are there, too.

Sansa helps him set out their trinkets, their table decorations and the like, and once she even takes Lyra to the shops with her to pick out a bunch of bright blue flowers to set in the middle of their table.

Jon looks rather mystified when he sees them, and for a second Sansa is sure that he hates them, but he just says, “We never have flowers. I’ll get a nice vase to do them justice,” and she immediately feels better.

She starts to come around in the afternoons, too, with one of her siblings while they take care of the twins while Jon has to go into his new office space to make sure everything is being set up properly. Sansa had been surprised to learn that Jon wasn’t just a builder, but an owner of his own construction company, and a rather successful one at that.

“He came into a bit of money when his dad died,” Arya explains at Sansa’s surprised look. “Jon had never met the man, but he apparently had known Jon existed this entire time and just never took the time to meet him. Apparently a big sum of money is supposed to make up for that. A load of bollocks if you ask me, but Jon’s set aside most of the money for the kids, and the rest he used to start the business.”

Sansa doesn’t ask any more questions, the conversation she’d had with Jon outside the homeware store fresh on her mind. If he has things he wants her to know, then he’ll tell her.

That goes both ways, of course, and Sansa has plenty of secrets to be shared.

But that’s future Sansa’s problem.

One particular Sunday afternoon finds Arya out of Winterfell and Robb in the movie theatre with his wife, and Jon calls Sansa in a small panic.

An unknown number calling her interrupts the pop song she’d been blaring and singing along to while working, and Sansa scrambles from where she’s kneeled, painstakingly lifting exposed nails that were previously hidden underneath the gripper rod for the carpet.

She hesitates at seeing no number, but decides to answer anyway.

“Sansa, hi, it’s Jon.” He sounds out of breath, and Sansa is struck with all kinds of dirty thoughts at the sound. “Listen, I have a huge favour to ask you.”

“Uh, go ahead,” Sansa says, eyeing the floor line to see what nails she can find from back here. Anything to distract her from how fucking sexy Jon’s voice is.

“The office has flooded and I have to go in, but Arya isn’t in town and Robb isn’t answering his phone, and –“

“I can come ‘round,” Sansa agrees quickly, eager to abandon her job. “Can you give me twenty minutes?”

“Of course,” he says, gratitude making his voice dip lower. “Thanks, Sansa, I owe you.”

“It’s no problem,” she dismisses, already making her way to the bathroom. She’s working on the upstairs part of the house first, and while it’s in progress she’s been living downstairs. It’s still a complete mess, of course, her parents having not updated the house even though her father had inherited it when he was Sansa’s age. But it’s not unusable, and Sansa is getting used to how different her life is here in Winterfell to King’s Landing.

“See you soon,” Jon says, then hangs up.

He sounds stressed, Sansa muses, and resolves to move as quickly as she can.

Once she’s at Jon’s house, he’s out the door to greet her, a bag slung over his shoulder, stuffed haphazardly with his laptop and a variety of paperwork.

“I’m so sorry to rush out,” Jon apologises, not even stopping as he passes her. “Seriously, I feel like a complete arsehole, but it’s - . . .” He stops where the pavement of his entry path meets his driveway, then comes back to stand in front of her, where she hovers with one foot hesitantly stepping on to his landing. “No, fuck it, they can wait another minute or two.”

Sansa can’t help but let a small smile grace her lips. “It’s alright if you have to rush off.”

“They can wait another minute or two,” he repeats. “I’m not sure how late I’ll be, so I understand if you want to keep trying to get in touch with Robb so he can replace you. Otherwise do what you need to do with them. You can watch TV with them or something if you can’t get them to settle. I’ll keep you updated on what’s happening, but I’ll try and be home for dinner.”

Sansa nods, a rush of uncertainty falling over her. She’s spent a bit of time with the twins over the past few weeks, but never alone. She’s not sure she’s _ever_ spent more than a few minutes alone with kids, and she suddenly doesn’t know what to do with them. What if she’s bad at it? What if they hate her?

Jon hesitates, and pushes the strap of his bag up his shoulder.

“They like you,” Jon tells her, eyes flicking up to his house. His features soften as he gazes at the door, and Sansa glances over her shoulder to see Will and Lyra pressed up against the screen door, noses indented by the mesh as they wave frantically at her. Sansa feels a rush of fondness for them, too, and feels much better about being alone with them. They’re an adorable pair, and their little personalities explode out of them. Sansa may have only known the Snow family for a few weeks, but she already feels like her life is better for it. “You’ll do fine with them.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Sansa tells him, then raises her voice so the twins can hear, “we’re going to have lots of fun together!”

Lyra and Will cheer at the door, and Jon smiles so widely at her that Sansa feels suddenly breathless.

“Thank you, Sansa,” Jon tells her, and his voice and face are so earnest that Sansa can’t help but reach out and squeeze his arm.

“It’s no problem,” she says. “Now go, quickly, before your whole office burns down.”

Jon groans. “God, it would be just my luck, wouldn’t it, for a flooded office to burn down.”

Sansa laughs, then nudges his shoulder. “Go on,” she encourages. “We’ll see you later.”

Jon waves to his kids, shouting at them to be good for her, and the two wave back enthusiastically and promise to do so, and then he disappears into his Range Rover. Despite his rush, he doesn’t peel away and there’s no squeal of tires, and Sansa doesn’t realise that she’s used to someone rushing away from her until she waits to hear the tell-tale noises of a speeding car. When no sounds come, she blinks and shakes herself, and reminds herself that that part of her life is over now. She’s not stuck with a husband that’s always eager to run off with his mistresses, only coming home when he wants to have a different kind of fun.

When she turns back to the twins, they’re still standing at the door, and Sansa laughs at them.

“Alright, you two, what should we do this afternoon?”

In the midst of jumping on the trampoline that was set up only three days prior, Sansa’s phone rings again.

“Boooo!” Lyra shouts when Sansa goes to answer it.

“It’s your dad,” Sansa tells her, and keeps jumping as she answers. “Hey, Jon.”

“Hey Sansa,” he greets. “How’s it going?”

“Good!” she says, as Lyra tells her to jump as high as Sansa can so that she can be flung into the air.

“That’s awe– what are you doing? You sound breathless.”

Sansa wonders what he thinks of that, whether the same thoughts fill his mind as filled hers earlier, when he rung her out of breath.

“We’re jumping on the trampoline,” Sansa says, bending her knees so that Lyra gets a boost of kinetic energy and is sprung into the air. Lyra screams in delight, and Will’s laughter fills the air as well.

“Again, again!” Lyra demands, and Sansa laughs as she does as she’s told.

“They sound like they’re having fun,” Jon says, and Sansa can practically hear the smile in his voice. She hopes that even this little conversation has lifted some of his stress; if he knows the kids are doing okay, hopefully he can just focus on his office problem.

“Are we having fun, guys?” Sansa asks the two of them. “Tell daddy we’re having fun!”

“Fun, fun, fun, fun!” Will shouts, and Lyra agrees by shouting YES really loudly.

“I’m glad,” he says, but his voice is a bit more strangled this time. Sansa can’t imagine why, but then he clears his throat and goes back to normal. “And you? Are you alright? They can be a bit of a handful.”

“No, honestly Jon, I’m fine. I’m actually having a really lovely time.”

Jon hesitates, and Sansa can practically feel his reluctance. She slows her jumping, and even though Will and Lyra beg her to keep going, she gently tells them she just has to talk to their dad really quick.

“What’s up?” Sansa asks, once she’s ‘round the corner and just watching the two through a window.

“The water was shut off by the time I got here, but the damage is pretty bad,” Jon says, and Sansa immediately feels awful for him. They’ve only been here for a few weeks, but Sansa feels like she’s watched Jon age considerably even in just that time. Relocating a business is hard enough, but moving the twins all by himself while trying to get his office space sorted has got to be about the most stressful thing she’s ever heard a single man try to attempt. “We’re draining the water now, but . . .”

He breaks off into a groan, and Sansa waits for him to get himself together.

“I have to stay until this gets sorted,” he continues finally. “We’re going to have to do some demo tomorrow now, so we’re going to get all the water and furniture out tonight so we can just get straight into fixing the walls and floors.”

“It’s alright, Jon, I’m more than happy to stay.”

He goes quiet again, and Sansa wonders what’s on his mind.

“Unless you want me to call Robb?” she questions, biting her lip, remembering all too well the way he’d implied that first day that he didn’t want to leave his kids with her.

“I’m happy for you to stay with them, Sansa,” Jon rushes to say, “but I might not be home until eight or nine tonight, and evenings are . . . you’d have to bath them, and feed them, and get them to bed. I don’t want to make you, or even . . . I don’t know, did you have plans tonight?”

“Jon, seriously, it’s _fine_ ,” Sansa reassures, trying to resist from rolling her eyes at how much of a worrier he is. “I can handle all of that. Just give me a run down of your usual routine.”

Jon fills her in on how their evenings go, and once she’s reassured him yet again that she can handle it, he hangs up the phone with more apologies on his lips. Sansa slips her phone in her back pocket, then goes to inform the pair of the new plans.

She manages to wrangle them off the trampoline with considerable bargaining, which mostly includes promising them that if they’re good and have a bath _now,_ there’ll be time to watch a movie with dinner.

Sansa feels vaguely outmanoeuvred when Lyra slips off the trampoline innocently as she says that it’s her turn to pick the movie because Will did the night before. After their bath she gets them in their pyjamas, and by the time she gets downstairs to try and figure out what to make them, she’s starting to the feel the exhaustion that Jon said came with evenings with twins. 

Lyra and Will both shout that they want McDonalds, and Lyra even goes so far as to cry and say that Jon would let them have it, but Jon had specifically said that he was going to make them pasta, and Sansa remembers Arya telling her that Lyra was smart enough to figure out a person’s weakness and exploit it.

Sansa determinedly sets about frying up chicken and boiling pasta, ignoring Lyra’s crying, and letting Will entertain himself with his figurines, which he insists on throwing in ‘jail’ every few minutes.

When Sansa sets the pasta in front of them both, Lyra has stopped crying, and considering how much fuss they’d put up about having it, they both eat it pretty without much complaint.

Likely because she’s set them in front of the TV with their plates, Moana keeping them both completely enraptured, but Sansa will take the victory nonetheless.

Seriously, she doesn’t know how Jon does it.

When they’re all finished, Sansa takes the plates to the sink with the intention of washing up, but then Will whimpers and scurries into the kitchen behind her to tug at her pants.

“Come back,” he whispers, eyes filled with tears. “Come sit with me. Don’t leave me alone.”

Sansa completely melts, and scoops Will into her arms.

“I won’t leave you, buddy,” she says, and bops his nose with her pointer finger. “I was just going to wash up.”

“No,” Will disagrees, shaking his head at her. “No washing up. Come back. Please.”

Sansa presses her forehead into his temple, then kisses his cheek when he nuzzles into her, his little fists running over the hair at the nape of her neck.

“Alright, Will,” she says, powerless against the earnest look on his face that is so like his father’s. “I’ll come back.”

When the movie finishes, the two of them insist on having a dance party through the credits, and then more bargaining ensues. This time, the subject is getting them into bed, and Sansa relents on reading them a story even though Jon had said that if they watch a movie they have to go straight to bed, no books.

Lyra brushes her own teeth, but Sansa has to set Will on the bathroom countertop and brush his for him. They both go to the toilet one last time, and in the end it’s Will who sits quietly in his bedroom to wait while Sansa reads to Lyra first.

She’s making her way through the fourth Harry Potter book, and if it weren’t for the bookmark halfway through the story, Sansa would think that Lyra was lying about reading it. But the little girl lays in bed and recounts to Sansa what’s happened in the series so far, and then what’s happened in the first half of the book, and Sansa doesn’t have the heart to tell Lyra she already intimately knows the storyline.

Lyra then continues to impress Sansa by reading it aloud, pausing on words that are unfamiliar to her and letting Sansa explain to her how to sound them out. When Lyra’s eyes start to droop, Sansa gently tugs the book from her hands and kisses her forehead.

“You’ve gotta put the music on,” Lyra mumbles, pulling her blanket up so it rests over her mouth.

Sansa does so quietly, and by the time the first notes of classical music start to play, Lyra has started to snore quietly.

Will is still sitting up in bed, playing with the figurines that had so kept his attention before dinner. He’s got three books fanned out next to him, and Sansa pushes her hand through his hair as she sits beside him and asks which one he wants her to read.

Will ponders the question for a long time, so long that Sansa repeats it, and then Will starts to flick through each book. She assumes he’s trying to figure out which one to pick, but when Sansa glances at her phone she sees it almost nine.

Jon had said their bedtime was seven-thirty, maybe eight on a Friday or Saturday night.

“Come on, baby,” Sansa says, running her fingers through his hair again. “Which book?”

“Ariel,” Will decides, picking The Little Mermaid up and handing it to her.

Despite the energy that they’d expelled that afternoon, getting him to settle down and stop wriggling proves to be a mammoth task. Some of it he can’t help, Sansa knows, the tic-like movement of his arms making him bring his fists to his face and then back down to his sides, but he also keeps kicking his feet out and sitting up, too.

Each time, Sansa guides him back into laying down, and by the time she gets him to stop moving it’s already ten past nine. She reads for a few more minutes, but her eyes are so heavy that she can’t handle it for much longer than that. When she puts the book down, Will is staring at her, no droop to his own eyes, so Sansa tells him to close them and then demonstrates by closing her own.

When she peeks one eye open, he’s still staring at her, so she reaches over him to tuck him into her chest and rub and pat his back.

She remembers a pattern from her own childhood, a gentle beat that had always comforted her and put her to sleep when her mother had done it, and she employs it now. One of Will’s fists come up to clench in the neckline of her shirt, and by the time Sansa realises that she’s about to fall asleep in his bed, it’s already too late.

The house is a bit of a mess when Jon gets home, but he can hardly blame Sansa for it. It’s hardly the worst state a sitter has ever left it in, and it’s not even bad enough to warrant him trying to tidy it now.

Sansa isn’t in the lounge or dining room when he gets home, though the lights are on in both, so he sets his bag down on the dining table and toes his shoes off before making his way upstairs.

He checks in on Lyra first, her room at the top of the stairs, and his daughter is sleeping soundly and peacefully, her fan on and her classical music playing quietly.

When he pokes his head into Will’s room, Jon’s heart squeezes painfully hard in his chest.

Sansa and Will are curled up together, books discarded on the ground, and they look like they’re both asleep.

Jon doesn’t remember the last time Will let anyone other than Jon himself in his bed with him. He doesn’t even let Robb and Arya in, and Will knows those two best of near on any other adult. It warms his heart, to see how easily Sansa and Will have come to adore each other.

Lyra can be a handful, her intelligence always intimidating to adults, and most adults that Jon comes across find her to be rude, even though she’s actually just honest. Jon has tried to temper the smug and superior attitude she can adopt, but at the end of the day he can’t really fault her for being smarter than the majority of people she comes across, even if she has a tendency to isolate herself because of it.

At the end of the day, though, he knows that other people have a much easier time understanding and connecting with Lyra than they do Will, and Jon’s heart has always hurt because of it. Will is the gentlest little boy, with such a big heart, and Jon _hates_ that a culture of neuronormativity has led to Will’s ostracism. Jon has always tried so fucking hard to give Will the same opportunity as every other child, has tried so hard to give Will the support he needs – both from himself and from medical professionals, like speech pathologists – but Jon can’t fix the world, no matter how much he hates how it treats Will.

And maybe Jon shouldn’t feel so moved by someone treating Will with the common decency and respect and kindness that any child deserves, but he doesn’t remember the last time someone came across his kids and so easily accepted them, differences and all. Robb and Arya don’t truly count, because he’s known them since before the twins were born and they watched the two of them grow up.

Sansa has continually taken Jon by surprise, and he can’t help but feel staggered by her.

The floor creaks as he makes his way in, and Sansa startles awake.

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologises quickly.

“No, no, it’s alright,” Sansa says, her voice rough from her sleep as she rubs her eye. Fuck, she’s _adorable._ “What time is it?”

“A bit past ten,” he replies. “I’m so sorry I was gone for so long.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sansa says, but he can tell she’s tired. She tries to extricate herself from Will’s grip, but his son whimpers and slides open one eye.

“Daddy?” Will mumbles, taking a deep breath as he rubs one of his eyes, too. Jon is struck dumb for a moment at how similar he looks to Sansa. It’s utterly ridiculous, of course, but with the slight tint of red it his hair and such a similar mannerism, Sansa could pass as his . . . the thought makes Jon feel guilty, and he pushes it away by coming to stand by the head of the bed.

Sansa has gone completely still, like a deer in highlights, and throws him a pleading look.

Jon chuckles quietly, then leans down over her to press a soothing kiss to Will’s temple.

“Hey, buddy,” Jon greets. He slides his hand down to Will’s fist, trying desperately to avoid brushing his hand over Sansa’s chest, then runs his thumb over the back of Will’s tiny hand. “Let go for me baby.”

Will does as instructed easily, and Sansa breathes a sigh of relief.

“Sleep well bud, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Will closes his eyes again, and when Jon shifts away, Sansa slides out of her bed.

Jon looks away as she adjusts her shirt, but he’s already caught a peek of the top of her black bra.

 _Fuck,_ Jon curses, swiping his palm over his mouth and hoping the gesture passes as just a manifestation of exhaustion.

Will’s room is filled with the sweet scent of her, and Jon makes his way out before he does something completely and utterly stupid, like kiss her senseless in his son’s bedroom.

Sansa follows him downstairs, taking each step slowly.

“You can stay if you need,” Jon offers as soon as they’ve reached the relative peace of downstairs. “There’s a spare bedroom.”

“No, I’m fine,” she says. “It’s only a ten minute drive.”

Jon wonders if he should insist, but when he turns to her all he can think of is the fact that he knows her bra is black underneath her shirt, and decides it’s probably for the best if he doesn’t.

“There’s a bowl of pasta in the oven for you,” Sansa tells him. Again, Jon’s heart thuds in his chest. When was the last time he came home to dinner having been left for him? He’s pretty sure it was before his mom died. “I was going to do the washing up, I swear, but –“

“You did more than I could have hoped for, Sansa,” Jon tells her, and loves that it makes her smile at him. “Now, I was thinking twenty dollars per hour, if that’s okay with you?”

Sansa frowns at him, and Jon wonders if that’s not enough.

“Or more, if you’re used to that?”

“No, no,” Sansa rushes to say, even stepping towards him with her arms outstretched. “No, you don’t need to pay me at all.”

“Sansa, I called you on a Sunday afternoon and asked you to drop everything to take care of them for almost eight hours. Of _course_ I’m going to pay you.”

“Would you pay Arya or Robb?” she challenges.

“That’s different,” he tries to argue, but he already knows she’s got him. If Sansa is anything like her brother and sister, this is an argument he’s _never_ going to win. “Fine. Thanks again, Sansa. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Sansa rocks on her heels for a moment, then goes over to pick up her bag. Jon follows her to the door and watches quietly as she puts her shoes on, and tries not mull over the fact that he wishes she weren’t leaving.

If anything, he wants to take her back up to his bed; not even to have sex with her – though he definitely wants that, too – but because he just wants to cuddle up with her and sleep with her in his arms, and then wake up in the morning with her by his side.

It’s even more terrifying than just wanting to have some fun.

He lingers by the door, even as her headlights turn out of his street, and tries to calm himself down.

But he’s never been one to do anything in halves, and unfortunately that includes falling in love.

By the time Sansa gets home, she feels cold.

The house is big and empty, and when she switches on the light in the kitchen, Sansa wonders why it doesn’t feel like _home_ right now.

When she tucks herself into bed, she realises it’s because she feels lonely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jon and sansa having ~no chill~ when it comes to their feelings for the other is the mood of 2020


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She huffs eventually, and looks away from him. “It’s just . . . this wood, it’s so wide. I’ve already looked everywhere in town, I can’t get panels this thick, they don’t make them anymore, and I – I can’t rebuild this wall with wood that’s uneven, so if it all falls down I’ll have to make everything the same size, and –“
> 
> “Hey, hey,” he sooths, come to stand beside her. He takes her hand, because she looks like she’s about to cry, and he won’t have that. “It’s alright. I know a guy, he can make these things custom.”
> 
> She sniffles, and looks away. “That sounds expensive,” she says miserably.
> 
> “I’ll get you a discount,” he promises. He wants to tuck his knuckles underneath her chin, swipe his thumb over her jaw in reassurance, but that seems too . . . intimate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GET READY TO HOP ABOARD THE PINING PARTY TRAIN KIDS!

When September rolls around, immediately bringing with it a fierce and unexpected drop in temperature and the beginning of the new school year, Jon has to face the fact that he’d not even looked for any help since moving back to Winterfell.

As he waits for Sansa to pick up the phone on the last Saturday of August, he belatedly realises that she might not _want_ to take care of his kids a couple days a week.

He’s a thrice damned fool, and he knows it, why is he like this –

“Jon, hello!”

She sounds so bright and cheery as she answers, like she’s genuinely pleased that he’s called her, and Jon’s worry melts away in favour of being tongue tied by how amazing she is.

“Sansa,” he greets, though it sounds too low and rough and little like he’s thinking he wants to fuck her – which he does, so badly, but that’s beside the point and not at all the reason he called – or is it – no wait, fuck _stop it_ – so he clears his throat and hopes his voice sounds normal. He stands from his chair in the home office, where he’d been sat looking over some architectural designs for a prospective client. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know, this house won’t fix itself.”

Jon nervously runs his hand through his unbound hair and chuckles, and to someone else it might not be that funny, but he thinks she’s so sweet and that little teasing lilt to her voice . . .

“It certainly won’t,” he agrees. “How is it coming?”

She pauses on her end for a moment, and he wonders what he could have said wrong, but then she says, quickly and a little breathlessly, “You can come and see, if you want. You can bring the kids too, but . . .”

She trails off, and he can practically see her biting her lip nervously.

 _But last time I offered to bring them here you insulted me,_ he thinks she means, except she would _never_ say that because she’s much too kind.

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” he says, unsure, fiddling with the back pocket of his jeans. “I’m sure you hardly need me poking around, or the noise of those two.”

“Nonsense,” Sansa disagrees. “I’d love a bit of company, actually. It’s awfully lonely all by myself in this big house.”

His thoughts are immediately drawn to her sitting by herself at night, in the cold and dark, and then wandering up to her room with no one there to keep her warm. But that way only madness lies so he agrees to come ‘round in an hour or so.

When he tells Will and Lyra that they’re going to go over to Sansa’s, Lyra’s back immediately straightens in delight, and Will grins widely and asks if they can go _now._

“Sure, bud,” Jon agrees, because he knows how long it can take to get these two organised. “Run up to your rooms and get a toy that you want to bring with you.”

As expected, in fifteen minutes time, neither of them have come back downstairs.

Jon rolls his eyes, unbearably fond, and leaves the things he’s collected to take on the dining table.

When he gets into Lyra’s room, she’s changed into a princess dress and is making her way through her collection of books.

“Dad!” she greets brightly, before he can tell her to get back into her other clothes. Now she’s made his chest feel all warm and giddy with the wide smile she’s given him, and he hardly has the heart to. “What book do you think I should take? I _love_ Harry Potter, but they’re bedtime books, don’t you think? So I thought maybe I should bring Percy Jackson instead, because we haven’t started those, but you _know_ I don’t like reading two different books at once.”

Jon comes to kneel beside her, looking over the books she’s got spread out before her very seriously.

“I think . . .”

Lyra looks up at him, with her beautiful big grey eyes, _his_ eyes, and she looks so trusting and like his word is the only thing that matters, and for the thousandth time today he’s brought to his knees with how much he loves her.

Figuratively, of course, because he’s already on his knees, but –

“I think you should take both,” he says decisively. “No need to make the choice now.”

She pouts up at him. “But how will I make the choice _later?”_

“You have the whole time in the car to think about it,” he promises. “But we have to go in a second baby, so get them both so you don’t have to make a rushed decision.”

Lyra looks thoughtful for a moment, then nods in agreement and stands. “You’re so wise, daddy.”

How fucking _adorable._

Jon kisses her temple, then stands, and takes her hands and pulls her up. She laughs in delight when he purposefully pulls too hard and picks her up, draping her arms over his shoulders so he can press a thousand kisses to her face.

“And why have you changed into this dress, princess?” he asks, tugging on the hem of it as she laughs and pushes his face away.

She frowns at him, a big, exaggerated frown. “You know I’m not a princess, daddy,” she corrects, that haughty tone about her that Jon can never decide if she inherited from him or Ygritte. “You’re not royalty.”

This is an argument that they’ve had many times over, but Jon will never stop calling her that because she never asks him to. He thinks that she likes this debate as much as he does, though she probably doesn’t know it.

“But you’re the queen of my heart,” he says as he sets her back down.

“My word, am I queen or a princess, then?” Lyra demands, and Jon has to press a hand over his mouth to make sure he doesn’t laugh at the fact she just said _my word._

“You’re both,” he decides.

It infuriates her, as he knew it would, and Lyra pokes her tongue out at him. “That’s just foolish. You can’t be both. That’s not the rules.”

“Hmm,” he hums. “Well, this is my house, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lyra agrees slowly.

“And in my house, it’s my rules, right?”

Lyra nods, eyes wide.

“And so my rules say that you can and _are_ a queen _and_ a princess.”

Lyra looks up at him, eyes as wide as he’s ever seen them, and her mouth open and closes a couple times.

“Well, that’s . . .” She starts, and flounders. “That’s . . .”

She may be five, but he still feels a little delighted that he’s outplayed her – this round, at least.

“Get back into your clothes, alright? Sansa is renovating, you don’t want to ruin your dress.”

Lyra shakes her head, still a little dumbfounded, and goes over to the pile of clothes she’d discarded in favour of what she’s wearing.

Will is also not ready.

He’s sat in the middle of his bed, playing with his figurines as always, and he doesn’t look up when Jon enters.

“Are these what you’re taking Will?”

Will looks up at Jon for a moment, then back down to his toys, smashing two together.

“Is Batman a goody?”

If it were Lyra, Jon would respond with a lively debate about the ethics of Batman’s actions. But Will –

“He is.”

Will repeats the question twice more, and each time Jon patiently agrees that Batman is a goody while he digs out some socks from Will’s drawer, and when Will is done asking, Jon slides his son’s socks on easily and quickly.

When Jon asks again whether Will wants to take all of his toys, Will still doesn’t reply, so Jon decides it’s best if they do, and he scoops all the toys into one hand and then takes Will’s tiny fist in his other.

“Come on Lyra,” Jon calls as they pass her room, “downstairs now, please.”

Jon opens his bag and puts in all of Will’s toys, and Will silently adds the couple that he’s holding, too, and then Lyra comes bounding the stairs, back in her jeans and jumper, with only one book in her arms – “Harry Potter is for bedtime!” she announces, and shoves Percy Jackson in his bag, too – and then Jon gets them in his car and on their way.

He stops for lunch at McDonalds along the way, much to the kids’ delight, and when he pulls up at the drivethru (because if he gets them out of the car, they’ll run straight for the playground and then Jon will _never_ get them back in the car) he quickly texts Sansa and asks her what she wants, because he realises he has no idea.

If it were Robb or Arya, he’d know immediately, but - . . .

When they pull up to Sansa’s house, Jon turns in his seat to look at the twins. They’re both already dutifully unbuckling their seatbelts, but they pause when he asks them to look at him.

“Now, Sansa’s house is a worksite, alright?” he reminds them both. “Which means there might be dangerous things lying around. I don’t want either of you touching things, or going into rooms without asking me. Agreed?”

They both chirp their agreement, and then they spill out of the door facing the curb – because they know never to get out of the car on the road side, not unless he’s the one opening the door – and race up to Sansa’s door.

Lyra is the one who knocks, and Will waits patiently beside her, while Jon comes up behind them with their food.

Sansa looks as beautiful and radiant as always when she pulls open the door, and Jon legitimately forgets how to walk for a second and almost trips over his own two feet, but he saves it at the last second. She’s in jeans and a flannel shirt, but he’s come to realise that such casual wear makes her feel a little uncomfortable, because the flannel shirt is tied in a knot around her waist, and she has a matching bandana in her hair.

“Hello, you two,” she greets, as Will and Lyra both attach themselves to one of her legs. She runs hands over each of their heads, and then looks up at him, a smile on her face.

Gods but she’s fucking gorgeous.

“Hey, Jon,” she says, quieter, more intimately. He _loves_ how she says his name.

Sansa leads the three of them inside, and Jon is quietly surprised to see that the downstairs is not at all the wreck he expected it to be.

He remembers how it was before, when Ned and Catelyn had lived here, how old it was, but how homey, too. 

_“You’re Lyanna’s boy,”_ Ned had said softly, the first time Jon had met him.

_“Yes, sir.”_

_“I was so sad to hear she had passed. She was one of my greatest friends when we were children. I’d heard she’d had a son. You look just like her.”_

_“Thank you, sir.”_

He’d only met the couple a handful of times, enough to say with confidence that he knows their house well, but obviously not so much that they’d mentioned their firstborn daughter.

Because Jon is still painfully aware that he’d known Robb almost ten years without knowing that he had another sister.

Jon remembers the furniture of the house, most of which is covered in plastic sheets now, though still in the same place. He remembers where each room is, how spacey and large it all is, and how he’d thought it was such a shame that the four Stark children had decided to lock it up after their parents died and not a one had been back since.

He gets it, he does, perhaps better than most because he, too, is an orphan, but he’s also glad that someone is doing something with it. To sell it would be unbearable, but to have it sit here, unused, it almost a crime in itself.

“I tried to clean it up a bit, make it safer,” Sansa explains as she leads them to the kitchen. “I’m not doing much down here anyway, but –“

“It’s fine,” Jon assures, touched that she’d tried to do anything. “These two know not to run around, don’t you?”

“Yes, daddy,” they chirp, then climb onto the stools tucked under the kitchen bench.

“The dining table is completely taped up,” Sansa says regretfully. “I tried to get the plastic off, but then I was just making a mess.”

“Seriously, Sansa, it’s okay,” he says, wishing she’d stop being sorry for such things. He wonders what has made her this way, but when he thinks on it too long, he has his suspicions, and they’re things he doesn’t like to linger with too long.

Once they’re done eating, Sansa says there’s something upstairs she’d like his opinion on, and so he sets the twins in front of the TV she’s uncovered for herself, reminds them again not to touch anything, and then follows her up. 

“I wasn’t planning to knock the wall down,” Sansa explains on the way. Jon tries to focus on her words instead of her arse as she walks up the stairs, but he’s not entirely sure he succeeds, and feels bad about it the whole time. “But I was trying to pull the cupboard out this morning and I’m a little concerned the whole thing is going to fall over as soon as I do?”

“Why?” he asks, moving his attention from her body by peeking into the rooms as they pass by them. Most up here are empty, the carpet he remembers in the bedrooms ripped up and revealing the crisp wooden floor underneath. The carpet has been in the rooms as long as he can remember, and he’s fairly sure that it wasn’t Ned and Cat that had it put in – from the patterns on it, he’s fairly it had been there for decades – and he has no idea why anyone would want to cover such marvellous flooring.

“I think it’s termites,” Sansa says, sounding like that’s the worst possible thing.

And it kind of is, especially if they’ve gotten in so badly she thinks the wall might collapse.

It’s Robb’s old room that she takes him to, and Jon immediately knows which wall she’s talking about.

The old cupboard is nailed into the wall, not part of it, and Jon has always thought that that was very odd.

Sansa stays by the door as he makes his way to the wall, knocking his knuckles against each panel of wood to listen to the sound it makes. About halfway down the wall, his knock gets hollow, and so he pauses and knocks down the two adjacent panels to see how far down the rot goes. The echo stops about a foot before the floor, which is relieving, because it probably means they’ve not gotten down into the floor.

He moves into the cupboard, and – yep, there it is. It sounds extremely hollow, all the way over the edge of the wall; not the outside of the house, but the wall that meets the hallway.

Jon picks up the crowbar she’s discarded at some point, and after she gives him permission to do what he wants, Jon sets the tip of it between the cupboard and the wall and pulls. It comes away easily, the screws pulling from the rotted wood with ease, and when Jon drops the crowbar and goes to pull the cupboard away a bit more so he can see the roof, Sansa moves into the room, hovering anxiously by his side.

He peers up at the roof for a moment, then pokes his head out the door to see if there’s a beam through the hallway, then gives Sansa a reassuring smile.

“The wall doesn’t look like it’s load bearing, so let’s just get this cupboard out so we can see the damage.”

“But what if it all falls down?” she asks, wringing her hands together.

“The whole house won’t collapse,” he says, “at worst it’ll just be this wall.”

Sansa bites her lip, and Jon can tell that something else is bothering her. He waits for her to tell him what’s wrong, staying still while he does.

She huffs eventually, and looks away from him. “It’s just . . . this wood, it’s so wide. I’ve already looked everywhere in town, I can’t get panels this thick, they don’t make them anymore, and I – I can’t rebuild this wall with wood that’s uneven, so if it all falls down I’ll have to make _everything_ the same size, and –“

“Hey, hey,” he sooths, come to stand beside her. He takes her hand, because she looks like she’s about to cry, and he won’t have that. “It’s alright. I know a guy, he can make these things custom.”

She sniffles, and looks away. “That sounds expensive,” she says miserably.

“I’ll get you a discount,” he promises. He wants to tuck his knuckles underneath her chin, swipe his thumb over her jaw in reassurance, but that seems too . . . intimate.

“I’m sorry for crying,” she says bitterly, and wipes her hands over her face. “You must think I’m so stupid.”

“I don’t, actually,” he says honestly. “If it has smaller panelling on the one wall it would look awful, I understand why you don’t want to have to replace everything. It’s a lot of work, for sure, but it’s . . .”

Aye, Jon knows the real reason. It’s the same reason she’s not really changing as much in here as somebody else might have. She’s giving it a facelift, updating it, but she’s not _changing_ it, not truly.

“This is all I have left of them,” Sansa says in a small voice. “I disrespected them so much by going to King’s Landing, and I can’t do it again.”

“You didn’t,” Jon disagrees. “You _aren’t.”_

“You don’t even know the story.”

“I don’t need to.”

He can see by the look on her face that she doesn’t believe him, but despite the fact that Jon hadn’t been told about her in all the years he’d known the Starks, he also knows that that likely wasn’t because they thought she was _disrespecting_ them.

Ned and Cat had always been so unbearably sad, especially around holidays, and he remembers in particular one Christmas when he’d _known_ something was wrong but had no idea what.

 _“It’s like having our very own grandchildren,”_ Catelyn had said, bouncing Will on her lap.

 _“None of us are married, mum,”_ Arya had responded, rolling her eyes. _“We’re not the people to be bugging about grandkids.”_

The whole table had gone silent, and Jon had known that Arya immediately regretted what she’d said, but he hadn’t wanted to pry and ask, and then Lyra had piped up and asked if they could start eating yet and Jon hadn’t dared bring it up again.

“If you’re sure it will be okay . . .” Sansa says dubiously, looking over to the cupboard.

“Well, apart from the terrible termite damage,” he teases, dropping her hand to go back over to the cupboard.

She gasps loudly. “So there _are_ termites!”

“Let’s just pull it down and worry about that after we’ve had a look,” he says. He pulls at the frame of the cupboard, loosening it up even more, and then the two of them carry it over to the other side of the room.

When he looks back and the wall, he says, “Huh,” and Sansa gasps again.

“Jon!” she shouts. “There’s a hole in my wall!”

“Mm,” he agrees, making his way over curiously.

“This is pretty bad actually, Sans,” he says, resting his hand against the wall and leaning on it to test whether it buckles. “I wonder if –“

One moment he’s standing in Robb’s old room, pressing on the wall, and the next he’s fallen straight through the old wood and is stumbling into the room over. He catches himself, but only just, and his heart beats frantically as he turns back to Sansa.

“Holy _shit,”_ he curses, staring back at the giant hole he’s just made with wide eyes.

“Are you okay?” Sansa asks, pushing through the hole and coming to his side. She brushes dust and wood chips from his shoulders, and then his hair, and it does nothing to slow his racing heart.

“Uh, yeah,” he replies. “Um, sorry about your wall . . .”

Sansa scoffs a laugh, turning back to it. She brushes some hair that’s fallen from her bun away, then hesitantly walks over to the crumbling wall.

“Honestly, I don’t think there’s even any wood left,” she says. “It was just the strip of paint.”

When Jon goes to stand beside her, he makes sure he leaves some distance between them, because his skin is still tingling from where she’d touched him.

“I think they’re gone, though, which is really good news.”

“Daddy?”

Jon and Sansa whip their heads around to see Lyra and Will standing in the doorway. Will has big eyes, and is clutching at Lyra’s hand, while Lyra has narrowed eyes at him.

“I told you both not to come up here,” Jon says, scowling at them.

“We heard a big noise,” Lyra informs him. “I’m just checking to make sure you’re still alive. Work sites are dangerous places, you know.”

He can’t even be infuriated with the way she’s parroted his warning back at him, not when she’s said _to make sure you’re still alive._

He sighs and scoops her up into his arms, and kisses her cheek.

“I’m okay, baby,” he says. “I just fell over, that’s all.”

He hears Will laugh a little, and turns to see that he’s in Sansa’s arms, nuzzling his head into her neck while she tickles his belly.

“I like her,” Lyra whispers to him, playing with the neckline of his shirt. “She’s nice. And pretty.”

“She is,” he agrees quietly. Gods, he’s in too deep. He wants her, so badly, he wants _this_ with her, weekends spent together, doing odd jobs together, talking and laugh with their – his – kids together. It’s all so domestic, so lovely, and something Jon has ached for since he was a child. He and Yrgitte never had this kind of relationship, and Jon has known for a long time that he missed out on all the best parts of sharing a life with someone.

“Have you asked her if she’ll get us from school yet?”

“I’ll ask her later. That okay with you, little miss?”

Lyra sniffs then takes his face in both of her tiny hands, turning his head so that’s he’s facing her.

“Only if you don’t ruin it,” Lyra warns him. “If she’s says no, I’m holding you responsible.”

Jon rolls his eyes at her. “Okay, that’s enough out of you,” he says, putting her back down. “Back downstairs, both of you.”

“I want to stay up here,” Lyra pouts.

Before he can say no, tell her that he and Sansa are busy and that she needs to go back downstairs where it’s safe, Sansa says, “I was actually just thinking that I wanted to sit down for a moment and let your dad do his thing. Come over and sit with me, yeah?”

Sansa grins at him, a wide and devilish thing, and says, “Well go on then. You’ve already ruined most of it, tear down the rest.”

“What do you mean?” Lyra asks as she follows Sansa and Will to the opposite side of the room. “What did he do _now?”_

Sansa stifles a chuckle as she settles down, and Jon turns away from them, unsure his heart can handle it. He sets to work on tearing down the damaged wood, but he can’t help but listen to Sansa talk to his kids.

“School starts back next week,” Lyra says a few minutes later, when he’s taken down most of the rotted wood. “Robb and Yaya are taking us and picking us up, but we have no one to –“

“Lyra,” Jon interrupts sharply, turning back to her. He didn’t mean to be so harsh with her, and immediately feels guilty when she turns to him with wide eyes. He’s just so overwhelmed, and the longer he’s here the more he’s sure Sansa is going to say no, because she’s obviously extremely busy. “I said I’d handle it.”

“You were taking too long!” she protests.

“It’s been five minutes!” Jon replies, agitated, running his hand through his curls.

“I know she’s going to say yes, though,” Lyra argues.

“Lyra, don’t argue with me,” he warns. “And don’t go against what I say.”

“You’re such a dictator,” Lyra mutters under her breath, crossing her arms.

“ _Lyra,”_ he snaps, and this time she shuts her mouth. He hardly ever uses such a tone with her, but she knows it’s his _if you say one more word I’m going to be so upset with you_ voice.

Sansa looks between the two of them warily, holding Will close to her chest. Will is completely preoccupied, playing with Sansa’s fingers, and has no idea of the argument going on around him.

“Me?” Sansa asks finally, while he and Lyra glare at each other, “you wanted to ask me something?”

“Daddy –“

“Lyra, please,” he says, trying to soften his voice. He _hates_ yelling at his kids, and he hates having to use anger as a way to teach them things. But Lyra in particular knows exactly how to work him up, and she always likes to see how far she can push him. “Come here.”

Reluctantly, Lyra pushes herself up and drags herself over to him.

He squats down and takes her hands in his. “Lyra, I asked you to leave it with me. Why didn’t you do what I said?”

She pouts at him and rocks on her feet. This is why he doesn’t like to yell at her; despite how intelligent she is, how quick and cunning she can be, she’s still just a kid. A baby, practically, and while ever he can teach her lessons without yelling, then he will.

“I really like Sansa,” she admits. “I want to spend time with her.”

“Baby, the reason I haven’t asked yet it is because I don’t want Sansa to feel pressured into saying yes,” Jon explains. He doesn’t look over to Sansa, even though he knows she can hear, partly because he’s trying to teach Lyra a lesson, and partly because he’s a little mortified this is happening in front of her. “She’s very busy, and she might not have time to get you guys from school.”

“Oh,” Lyra murmurs, looking down at her foot as she kicks it against the ground.

“I know you like her, but it’s not nice to make people feel like they have to say yes to something they don’t want to do.”

“Sorry, daddy,” Lyra mumbles. She lifts her head and turns to Sansa. “Sorry, Sansa.”

Jon cups her cheek and kisses her forehead, then says, “You know there’s a reason behind why I ask you to do things. If you don’t know what it is, just ask me next time, instead of going against my wishes.”

“Alright,” Lyra agrees.

“Back downstairs, okay?” Jon instructs.

Lyra does as he asks this time, dragging Will behind her, and when they’re alone again Jon tries to give Sansa a smile.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I really didn’t want to pre –“

“I would love to,” Sansa interrupts, taking a step towards him. “Any time you want. Morning, night, as many hours as you need.”

“Wait, really?”

He feels unsure that that could be true. She’s so busy, what with the house and all, and his kids are a _handful_ –

“Really. I love those two, and I love spending time with them, and with yo - . . .” She clears her throat. Jon’s heart thuds. Was she going to say what he thought she was?

She doesn’t say anything further.

“I – well, that’s great, then,” Jon says, mind still stumbling over _and with yo-._ “Uhm, I was hoping you could take them to school on Thursdays and Fridays, and pick them up those days too? I don’t know exactly when I’ll be home, but I always make sure to have dinner with them, so –“

“It’s fine, Jon. It’s perfect, actually. I would love to.”

When Jon and his kids leave later that evening, Sansa is _mortifyingly_ wet.

But it’s not her fault, okay, Jon just . . . he just came in here, looking so fucking good in jeans and a dark shirt (and dear god, Sansa didn’t think she liked men’s belts this much, and it’s so oddly specific, but _fuck_ ), being so sweet and kind by bringing them all lunch, then following all that up with being so amazing with his kids (and don’t even get her started on how hot it is that he _has_ kids, what the fuck is wrong with her), and, okay . . . when she was younger, Sansa had some . . . fantasises . . . about maybe being a little roughed around in the bedroom.

She’s never indulged in such a fantasy, because she could never have trusted Joffrey with such a request, and after he’d hit her for the first time anything desirable about rough sex had disappeared immediately.

But _Jon_. . . gods, that stern tone of his voice . . .

She’s knows it’s inappropriate. He’d been disciplining his child, for gods sake.

But after they’ve all left, it is all too easy for Sansa to get into the shower and slip her fingers between her thighs and picture his hard body lined up her back, and the way his voice would sound when commanding her to follow each instruction he gives her.

Sansa hasn’t had sex in a long time, longer than she likes to admit to herself. Joffrey’s affairs had usually kept him occupied and with little need of her, especially in the later years of their marriage. Not that sex with Joffrey was ever _good,_ and she can only remember a handful of occasions that he actually made her come in the almost ten years they were married, but it was still something. Her toys have been performing admirably and consistently, and she’ll probably break one or two of them out later tonight and imagine things she has no business imagining, but for now . . . Sansa _wants._

And she wants desperately.

When she comes so hard she has to muffle her cries into the crook of her elbow, Sansa spends the rest of the time in her shower thinking of all the many reasons why Jon Snow can never, ever, ever be hers.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sansa’s going to be here in the morning, she should just sleep here,” Lyra says with a wide yawn, as Jon tucks the blanket under her chin.
> 
> After slight pauses, in which Sansa’s breath hitches, Jon says, “Sansa has to go back to her house, baby.”
> 
> “But why?” Lyra asks, a big pout on her lips.
> 
> “Because that’s where she lives. She can’t stay just because you want her to.”
> 
> I would, Sansa thinks, her throat aching, if you wanted me to stay too, gods I would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I attempt to balance fluff with some angst ...........

Sansa settles into a routine very easily.

Her days fly by, filled with renovating, and her evenings are equally as pleasant, usually spent in the company of one of her siblings. Dropping off and picking up Lyra and Will is startlingly easy, and they quickly get into a nice pattern.

Sansa doesn’t get to spend as much time with Jon as she wants to, because he leaves as soon as she arrives at about seven thirty, and then she leaves when he gets back from work, usually around five thirty to six.

She knows how busy he is, what with moving his business to Winterfell and all, but she doesn’t realise how busy until one day she finds out that he didn’t relocate his business, he’d expanded it.

“I know I’m home, but I have a bit more work to do,” Jon apologises to her once he’s greeted the twins. “The Castle Black office had a supply issue today, and I haven’t quite got it sorted it yet.”

“Oh, uh,” Sansa had stumbled, a little stunned. “Yeah, no, go ahead. I’ll start dinner?”

“That would be amazing,” he says. “You’re welcome to stay. You probably have other plans, but –“

“No, no,” she agrees quickly, probably too quickly. “I’d love to stay.”

He smiles at her, and she smiles at him, and it all lasts a few seconds too long because then Jon’s phone rings and they both jump.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Uh, I’ve got to –“

“I’ll start dinner,” Sansa says quickly, and turns from him before he can see how red her face is.

“Tormund, hey, no I just got home –“

As she cooks, Lyra sits quietly at the kitchen bench, playing a game of chess on a tablet, while Will sits on the bench beside the stove, watching everything Sansa does intently.

“Are you a cook?” Will asks, watching as she adds different spices to the bolognaise sauce.

“No baby, I’m a fashion designer.”

Lyra gasps from behind them, and Sansa turns to look over her shoulder to make sure she’s okay.

“You design clothes?” Lyra asks, smacking her hands on the benchtop and rising up to stand on her stool. “That’s amazing!”

“Yeah, I think so, too,” Sansa agrees, then says, “I also think you should sit back down. You might fall.”

“What have you designed? Can I see pictures?” Lyra asks, ignoring Sansa’s request.

“I can show you a couple things,” Sansa says. She hears Jon start to come down the stairs, so repeats, “Seriously Lyra, sit down please.”

“Can you make _me_ a dress?” Lyra gasps, jumping up and down once on the stool.

It wobbles dangerously, and Sansa immediately drops her spoon and lunges over to her. Lyra has steadied herself already, but her face is a bit pale and she sits back down slowly and carefully.

“Whoops,” she mutters.

Sansa’s heart is beating frantically, and she drops her forehead down onto the countertop, exhausted.

“Lyra, I asked you to sit back down,” Sansa says warily, lifting her head again. “Please don’t ignore me next time.”

“That was scary,” Lyra agrees, right as Jon comes up behind her.

He smiles at Sansa over Lyra’s head, a big, encouraging smile, but Sansa isn’t sure she deserves it, considering she almost watched his daughter _die._

Jon drops a kiss to the top of Lyra’s head. “I told you honey, adults give you instructions for a reason. Don’t ignore them.”

“Daddy, did you know Sansa was a fashion designer?” Lyra asks as Jon comes around the kitchen bench.

“I did know that,” Jon replies, ticking Will’s stomach. Will breaks into a peal of laughter, then throws himself into Jon’s arms.

“She’s going to make me a dress!”

“I don’t think I heard her agree to that,” Jon says, then sticks his finger into Sansa’s bolognaise sauce for a try.

She sighs dramatically, and he grins at her from around his finger, and . . .

Yeah, these are _not_ thoughts he should be having in front of two five year olds.

“I’ll make you a dress,” Sansa struggles to agree, feeling way too out of breath. 

Lyra claps her hands together in delight. “Can you show me other ones you’ve made?”

“After dinner,” Sansa says.

“No, it’s alright,” Jon interrupts, putting Will back down on the counter. “I’ll finish dinner. You show Lyra how amazing you are.”

In a dumbfounded trance, Sansa sits beside Lyra and scrolls through old renderings on her phone, then shows Lyra the completed looks on runways and on the LV site.

Jon talks quietly with Will while he finishes making dinner, and Lyra rests her head on Sansa’s shoulder as she listens and watches, enraptured, and it’s so very domestic.

Gods, Sansa didn’t know a heart could be both so full with love and longing at the same time.

They sit at the dining table together, Jon at the head of the table, his kids either side of him, and Sansa on Will’s other side, and Sansa gets a fascinating insight into who Jon is when they go around the table and tell each the best and worst parts of their day.

“One of the sites didn’t have the timber they were supposed to this morning,” Jon says, when asked to tell them all the worst part of his day. “And without it they couldn’t do their job. And the supply company said it was being sent, but it never was. So I’ve had to be cranky at a lot of people all day, and I didn’t like it.”

“You’re terrible at being cranky,” Lyra agrees.

Sansa thinks that’s a little funny, because his disposition is certainly prone to long faces and a bit of brooding.

“My best part was coming home to you three, of course,” Jon says, and Sansa is sure that her soul leaves her body.

Lyra screws her nose up. “You say that every day!” 

Jon sighs dramatically. “Well then I suppose my favourite part was this pasta. It’s pretty good, isn’t it, guys?”

Will and Lyra agree vehemently, and both of them shove a mouthful in at the same time as if to prove the point.

“Nothing great happened at work?” Sansa asks him, her fingers tight around her fork as she tries to stop focussing on _coming home to you three._

“Uh, the coffee machine got fixed?”

Sansa stifles a laugh at the confused pull of his brow. “You didn’t get a new contract? Finish a site? Nothing that made it a good day?”

“. . . Thursday is invoice day.”

Sansa does laugh this time, and Lyra and Will laugh too, even though Sansa is pretty sure they neither heard nor understood what was so funny.

“I loved my job,” Sansa tells Jon truthfully, putting her fork down. “I loved every piece of clothing I designed, and I loved all the people I worked with, and the company I worked for. Don’t you feel like that?”

Jon frowns again and takes a drink from his red wine, then puts it down slowly, thoughtfully.

“Not really,” he admits. “But I was a good builder, and I’m a good enough leader, and while owning the business hasn’t really freed up my time, it’s been good financially, and that’s more than I thought I’d have as a child.”

“Daddy was poor growing up,” Lyra informs Sansa casually, then takes another bite.

Sansa vaguely, _vaguely_ remembers her father saying something about Lyanna not being as well off as he was as a child, but she’d not really thought that that might be something that had carried on into Jon’s childhood, too.

She remembers much clearer, however, Arya telling her that Jon had come into a big sum of money when his father had died, and she decides that that’s probably a conversation better left until later.

“It’s very impressive that he’s done so well then, isn’t it?” Sansa says to Lyra, who shrugs and nods, because she doesn’t know how society works against people like Jon. 

“I was lucky enough to come into an inheritance,” Jon says, with a little bit of hesitancy.

“Still,” Sansa says stubbornly, “you could have blown it pretty easily, but you’ve turned it into something better.”

Jon looks uncomfortable at her praise, so Sansa tells them her best and worst parts, too, which end up being quite similar to Jon’s; she had some trouble getting her fixtures, but then she got to come and play a great round of crocodiles vs people with Will and Lyra on the school playground.

After dinner, Lyra begs Jon to let Sansa stay, and Sansa agrees because, well, she loves them. She’d rather be here with them than home alone.

Jon disappears while Sansa settles into the kids’ playroom with them, drawing with Lyra while Will occupies himself with his toys in the corner. Sansa keeps glancing over at him, wondering whether she should go and play with him, but each time she looks over to him, Lyra says that Will is pretty happy over there by himself, and Sansa thinks that that’s true.

When Jon reappears in the doorway, his curls damp, donned in a tracksuit and a loose sweater, with, gods above, _glasses_ on, Sansa legitimately thinks for a moment that she’s died and gone to Heaven.

Or something equally ridiculous, because Sansa is sure she’s never seen a man look so sexy in her life. At least, not outside of a magazine or TV show.

“Alright you two, up to bed now.”

“But _daaaadd,”_ Lyra whines, while Will drops his toys and scurries out of the room.

“No buts, Lyra. It’s a school night, you need to get to sleep.”

“Can Sansa read me my bedtime story?”

“I can do that,” Sansa agrees. She glances at Jon, to see if he wants to go back to her house already, but he just gives her a soft smile and Sansa thinks that she’s been ruined for any other man.

Lyra stands and takes Sansa’s hand, dragging up from her chair and out of the room.

“We’re on to the next Harry Potter book,” Lyra informs her.

Jon gives Sansa an indulgent smile as she and Lyra brush past him, and Sansa isn’t going to spend the rest of her life thinking about how hard Jon’s arms are to the touch, nope, no.

Jon follows them up the stairs, and Sansa is only half focussed on Lyra’s retelling of what happened since Sansa last read with her, instead acutely aware of the fact that Jon is right behind her.

She can’t help but wonder what he sees when he looks at her. Robb and Arya’s sister? A divorcee who’s run back home with her tail between her legs? A babysitter?

Or maybe Sansa, someone he might like to go on a date with, who he maybe finds interesting, or sweet, and maybe even a little sexy.

“I’ll go in with Will,” Jon murmurs to her as they reach the top of the stairs.

Lyra leads Sansa into her room, and Sansa can’t help but throw a look over her shoulder as Jon disappears down the hall.

Gods, she’s losing her mind.

Sansa tucks herself next to Lyra in bed and holds the book for Lyra to read, helping her sound out words when she needs, which isn’t as often as Sansa had always thought needed by a five year old. But Lyra is very different to most five year olds, Sansa muses. She remembers Rickon at this age, how much energy he’d had and how active his imagination was. He’d also not been nearly as well mannered as either Lyra or Will, but she’s not sure if that’s just Jon’s brilliant parenting, or the fact that Rickon has always been a little wild.

By the time they get to the end of the chapter, Jon has joined them, sitting on the end of the bed and listening as well.

“You’re getting very good,” Jon praises, tweaking Lyra’s toes through the blanket.

“I think I can try harder books,” Lyra announces.

“Harder than Harry Potter?” Sansa asks, aghast. “They’re so thick, though! I couldn’t read these books until I was much older than you.”

“Don’t feel bad about yourself,” Lyra says, resting her hand on Sansa’s elbow; and likely that should have sounded a little condescending, but Lyra looks up at her with the most earnest eyes, so Sansa just takes the advice at face value. “Most kids in my class can’t even read picture books. They’re still learning.”

“Everyone learns at their own pace, though,” Jon says gently, “and we never make fun of them for it, do we?”

Lyra shakes her head sagely. “No. _Never.”_

“You’re a very beautiful little girl,” Sansa murmurs, shimmying down the bed so she can press a kiss to Lyra’s temple. “Dad and I are going to turn the lights out now, so sleep well little one.”

Sansa slides off the bed, and Jon leans up to kiss Lyra, too.

“Tuck me in?” Lyra asks, burrowing herself further into the blankets.

Jon lifts the book from her lap and puts it on the floor, then grasps the top of the sheets.

“Sansa’s going to be here in the morning, she should just sleep here,” Lyra says with a wide yawn, as Jon tucks the blanket under her chin.

After slight pauses, in which Sansa’s breath hitches, Jon says, “Sansa has to go back to her house, baby.”

“But why?” Lyra asks, a big pout on her lips.

“Because that’s where she lives. She can’t stay just because you want her to.”

 _I would,_ Sansa thinks, her throat aching, _if you wanted me to stay too, gods I would._

Lyra sighs, then nods and closes her eyes.

Jon rises from beside her, and offers Sansa a sweet smile.

“I’m sorry you had to stay so long,” Jon says when they get downstairs.

“Don’t be silly,” Sansa replies, waving his comment away. “I love those kids. You’re doing a good job, you know.”

He shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Doesn’t feel like it, sometimes.”

“You are, Jon.” Sansa steps closer, placing her hand on his arm. She tries not to focus on how close she got to him suddenly, but now all she can see is the slope of his cheeks and the line of his jaw and pout of his lips, and her nose is filled with the heady scent of whatever shampoo he’d used, and dear _gods,_ his _arm._ “There’s not many men who can raise twins as well mannered and behaved.”

“I’ve been pretty lucky with them,” Jon says, and Sansa thinks she’s imagining the way his breath has stilted.

“Don’t sell yourself short. It would be pretty easy to just let them watch TV all the time, or yell at them, or whatever.”

Jon purses his lips. “I guess I just don’t want them to feel like they’re missing out,” he admits. “And I know that they’ll always wish their mum was alive, but I don’t want them growing up thinking that their childhood was lesser for it. Is that arrogant of me? To think I can be both mum and dad?”

“Oh, Jon.” Sansa envelops him in a hug without question. He braces his forehead against her shoulder, finger clutching in the fabric of her shirt. “Of course it isn’t. They’re your _kids._ You just want what’s best for them.”

“I know I’m not – _fuck,_ I know I have flaws, like everybody else, but I just want them to look at me and be proud that I’m their dad.”

Sansa releases him to take his face between her hands, staring at him until he meets her eyes. “Now you listen to me, Jon Snow,” she says sternly. He smiles a little, but doesn’t break eye contact. “As someone who grew up with a pretty amazing dad, _believe_ me when I say that you might just be the best father in the world.”

“Thanks, Sans,” he whispers.

There’s that nickname again. He’d said it a few weeks ago, when he’d fallen through her wall, and at the time it had made her heart thump widely. It does so again now, the traitorous thing.

His hands are lingering on her waist, Sansa realises belatedly. And she should probably let her hands drop, she definitely shouldn’t curve them over his cheeks so the tips of her fingers slide into his hair, except – whoops – too late –

From the countertop, Jon’s phone blares to life.

Sansa jumps away from Jon while he curses and dives for his phone.

“It’s Robb,” he mutters while Sansa hurriedly makes sure everything is in her bag. “Just – one second, Sansa, I’ll just make sure he’s okay.”

She reluctantly pauses her search, which she’d taken up in the hopes she could flee his house, but he’s looking at her with such imploring eyes that she nods.

“Hey, Robb,” Jon greets. “You okay? . . . Yeah, yeah, but only a minute . . .”

Jon’s gaze meets hers, suddenly, and he goes completely quiet. He looks confused, brows furrowing and his mouth dropping open, and then closing again. A pit of dread wells in her stomach, hot and fast, and Sansa pulls her phone from her bag to make sure she hadn’t missed a call.

No missed calls, no waiting texts; she wonders what could have made Jon look at her like that.

Jon clears his throat, then says, “Uh, yeah I’m still here. Um, sure I guess. Just . . . text me her number I suppose.”

Sansa looks away from him. There’s a lot of reasons why Jon said that. It doesn’t have to mean what she thinks it does.

Jon finishes his call, then slips his phone into his back pocket.

“I’ll, uh, walk you out?”

Sansa swallows.

_Fuck._

It probably means what she thinks it does.

“What did Robb say?” Sansa can’t help but ask as he leads her to the door.

That’s not a weird thing to ask. Robb is her brother, it’s not unusual for her to ask what he’d said.

“He just . . . I don’t know, there’s a woman from his work that he wants to set me up with. Val, I think her name is.”

Maybe a good sign that he hasn’t paid enough attention to remember her name.

But what comes out of Sansa’s mouth is, “I didn’t know you dated.”

Jon winces, and Sansa tries to hide her own by shrugging her bag up over her shoulder.

Dear gods, could she be any more obvious?

“I don’t really,” he answers, turning away from her. “It’s never really felt right.”

“I suppose you have to get back out there at some point.”

Fuck, she needs to leave before she dies of mortification.

“Yeah,” he mutters, running his hand through his curls. “I s’pose.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jon feels like a party crasher when he brings the twins to these kinds of things,” Arya explains. “We’ve all tried to tell him that that’s stupid, but I think he just kind of got used to staying in and missing out in Castle Black.”
> 
> “That is stupid.”
> 
> Arya shrugs. “Eh, I get it. I love those kids, I really do, and I love hanging out with them, but . . . I don’t know, it’s nice not to have to watch a kids movie when I hang out with you guys.”
> 
> “Kids movies are great,” Sansa says, a little offended at the implication that watching one would be a chore; especially when it’s with Jon’s kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha you guys were super pissed at me about introducing val, so I figured I'd post this chapter a day early so we can get this plot point over with (though there is one more chapter after this that you'll have to endure it in) (also ps rest assured, if it was anything serious, I would have tagged it)

When Robb invites Sansa out for brunch, Sansa’s mind runs rampant with possibilities. She can’t help but connect it with the fact that he’d just set Jon up on a date, but she isn’t sure how those two things go together, no matter how much she thinks about it.

Robb picks an innocuous place outside of the main town centre, which has shitty coffee and is therefore unpopular, but Sansa is grateful for the anonymity despite it.

It’s mid-October now, with the mid-term holidays fast approaching, and a brisk weather with them.

Considering Robb had gone to the effort of finding somewhere low-key for them to meet, Sansa also goes to considerable effort on choosing something appropriate to wear. She doesn’t know why it’s so hard. She’s found a nice balance of what to wear when she’s working on the house, but she can certainly admit that that’s taken some trial and error.

In the end she decides on a pair of dark jeans, a thin white sweater and a cute brown vest that matches her boots.

Gods, she spent way too much time on this.

She parks her BMW behind Robb’s Mercedes, then makes her way into the coffee shop.

It’s practically empty, as promised, and Robb has taken a seat in the corner.

He smiles when he spots her and jumps up to hug her.

“You look nice,” Robb says, an earnest smile on his face, and Sansa is relieved to see she doesn’t look any more dressed up than he does. He’s come from the office, Sansa decides, his suit jacket hanging on the seat he’d been in a moment before.

“I would’ve invited you to our house, but Jeyne is doing night shifts this week,” Robb says.

“No, that’s alright,” Sansa replies, shifting in the hard seat. “It’s nice to be out, actually.”

“Have you been through town much?” Robb asks, trying to be innocent as he scans over his menu.

Sansa sighs. “A couple times, to get things for the house. Hardly much risk being recognised in hardware stores, right?”

Robb winces at her tone, and puts his menu down.

“No one’s ever asked me about you, if that makes you feel better,” Robb says quietly. “Even at the office, and accountants are notorious gossips.”

“Is this an intervention?” Sansa questions, putting her own menu down so she can look Robb in the eyes as she asks.

“No, of course not. If it was, you’d have more siblings here,” Robb tries to joke. She just raises a brow at him. He sighs. “I’m just worried, San. It was no small thing that happened to you, and I just –“

“Robb, we don’t need to go over this again,” Sansa interrupts. She has to go to concerted effort not to warily glance around the room. “Please. I’m fine, I promise. I’m just glad to be back for now. I don’t _need_ anything else.”

“Are you going to go back to work?” he questions, tilting his head. She can’t even be angry with him when he looks at her so earnestly. She _can_ be exhausted, however. “I know how much you loved your job.”

“Robb, you know they wouldn’t take me back,” she says, harsher than she intends. “And I doubt Cersei would have stopped her sabotage with Louis Vuitton. Not now he’s dead.”

Robb winces at her plain words. “I don’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” Sansa replies, though she shoves her menu up over her face so that he can’t see that she _is._ “I just don’t see the point in talking about this anymore. I’m okay.”

Robb doesn’t say anything for a few long moments, their stalemate broken by the waitress coming over. They make their orders, and then Sansa’s shield is taken from her. Without the menu, she’s forced to look at her brother. 

“Nice suit,” she compliments, trying desperately to find something to talk about. “Ralph Lauren?”

“Aye,” he agrees, as awkward as she is. “And look, no socks.”

He sticks his leg out and pulls up his pant leg to reveal that he hasn’t paired his loafers with socks, which Sansa had advised against when he’d come down to King’s Landing for her earlier in the year.

“You could do with a Burberry scarf for winter,” Sansa says, looking him up and down and mind drifting to the possibilities.

Robb gives her a small smile.

“Armani just released their winter line, actually,” Sansa says, reaching into her bag for her phone, “and they have the most beautiful double-breasted coat, it would go really well with this suit –“

Robb puts his hand over hers. “I have a good coat,” he tells her gently. “Thank you, though.”

“Oh. Right.” She clears her throat and puts her phone down. “Sorry.”

“No, I – it’s nice to see you excited.”

Sansa pauses, biting her lip. Does she not get excited anymore? Surely she does. Just this morning she got out of bed with a smile on her face because today is Thursday, which means it’s one of the days that she drops off and picks up Will and Lyra.

Oh. _Oh._ Huh.

“I’m happy, Robb,” she reassures, and knows that it’s true even if he doesn’t. “I am.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t push again.

“So Jeyne’s on the night shift this week,” Sansa says as the coffee is put down in front of them. “Sounds rough.”

Robb looks at her for a long moment, but eventually takes the bait. They talk easily over their brunch, much easier than the first part went, and Sansa finds herself thoroughly enjoying seeing him.

They’ve seen each a lot since she came back, but only a couple times just the two of them. Usually more siblings are around, or Jeyne, and Sansa loves that, she does, but it’s nice just to spend time with her brother.

Eventually his phone buzzes on the tabletop. He picks it up and types out a quick reply, then lets it drop back to the table.

“That work?” Sansa asks, wiping her mouth with her napkin.

“No, it’s Jon,” Robb replies. Sansa stills for a moment, an unexplainable panic filling up in her, but Robb doesn’t notice. “I’ve set him up with this girl from work, Val, and he was just asking if I can babysit while he goes out with her.”

“Oh,” she manages to get out. “That’s – oh.”

“Hey, how are you finding your time with them?” Robb asks suddenly. “Jon said you were on kid duty on Thursday’s and Fridays, right?”

“Yes,” she says, but her good mood is thoroughly spoiled now. “When’s Jon going on his date?”

Oh gods, why’d she say that? How obvious, Robb is definitely going to be on to her –

He picks up his phone to check, none the wiser. “Next Friday. That lad needs to get out more, I tell you. He’s never gonna find someone if he just works all the time.”

“He has two kids,” Sansa disagrees, though because she’s repeating it to herself or trying to discourage Robb from setting Jon up, she can’t be sure. “I think he’s a bit busy to be worrying about that.”

Robb rolls his eyes. “He has kids, Sansa, he’s not in a convent. No, a date would do him some good. Maybe loosen some of his tension. Hey, do you think it would be funny if I snuck him some condoms? He got a girl knocked up, kid obviously doesn’t have a supply himself.”

Sansa clears her throat three different times before she speaks, and hopes her face isn’t as red as she thinks it is.

“I think this is inappropriate to talk to me about,” she mutters, leaning down to shove her phone in her bag in an attempt to stop this conversation.

She hadn’t even thought about the possibility that he’d have sex with this girl on the first date, and Sansa suddenly finds herself hating this anonymous _Val,_ and the fact that she’s going to get to see what Jon’s hands can really do when put to work, and –

She’s being ridiculous, she knows she is, but she still feels righteous when she says, “I’ve gotta get back home, I’ve still got two more walls to paint this afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. I should get back to work, too.”

Robb pays for them, even though Sansa insists on at least paying her half, and then he walks her back to her car.

“We’re still on for tomorrow, right?” Sansa asks. “Even though Jeyne’s on night shift?”

“I’m definitely coming,” Robb confirms. “I don’t know about Jeyne, though I think she’ll try. She’s not working tomorrow night, but she might be a bit tired.”

“That’s alright, just let me know so I can get some food.”

Robb gives her a big, lingering hug, and a nice kiss on the cheek, and Sansa tries not to feel deflated by the conversation after he’s left.

She sits in her car for several long minutes after he’s driven away, just staring at the road and thinking over Robb’s words. 

No matter how shitty it might be about to be to watch Jon go on a date with someone else, Sansa knows her life is much better now than it has been in almost ten years.

She can live with that. For now.

The following night, Sansa has invited around all her siblings and their partners for a movie night.

She’d invited Jon, too, before he’d rushed out for work that morning. Her conversation with Robb had still be heavy on her mind, and she finds herself with the distinct desire to prove that _she’s_ someone he can have fun with.

Not _that_ type of fun, of course, though a little bit of it wouldn’t go awry -

Jon had looked a little surprised at her offer, then had said, “No, I’ll let you have the evening with your family.”

“I want you to come,” she’d countered. 

“If I come, I’d have to bring the twins.”

“So?”

He’d smiled gently at her. “It’s okay, Sansa. You have a good night.”

When Robb arrives to the house that evening, Sansa immediately corners him.

“Why didn’t Jon want to come?”

Robb blinks as he stares down at her.

“Uh, hello to you, too.”

Sansa huffs and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Sorry. Hi.”

Jeyne smiles at Sansa and makes her way into the kitchen with a bottle of wine. Robb is carrying a six pack, and Sansa trails after him as he takes it to the kitchen, too.

“It’s looking really good, San,” Robb praises.

Sansa looks around for a moment, wondering what he sees. She’s not changed it all that much, truthfully. Most of upstairs is fixed up, some of the furniture moved back in, and she’s tentatively started working downstairs, too. It doesn’t need as much work, mostly just small, cosmetic things; like the hideous colour on some of the walls, and the gross tiling that she’s already changed upstairs that is _everywhere_ – seriously, she’d never really thought much about tiling until she started this, but it’s fucking everywhere, bathrooms, the kitchen, the laundry – but it’s nothing crazy. She’s keeping all the fixtures the same, all the kickboards and cornice and such.

“Thanks,” she says, and wonders how she can steer the conversation back to Jon.

“San, you’re out of chips,” Rickon announces as comes back into the kitchen from the backyard.

“I just put them out,” Sansa replies, raising a brow at him.

“Yeah, like five minutes ago. What did you expect me to do, just let them sit there?”

Sansa rolls her eyes and scoffs, but gives him a fond smile, too, because she’s missed them all so much. She’s been back for a couple months now, and she’s spent a lot time with them all, but she’s got ten years worth of memories to make up for.

“No, I suppose not. We’ll order pizza once –“

The front door slams open, no knock preceding it, and then Arya shouts her arrival.

“- Arya gets here,” Sansa finishes.

Rickon throws her a finger gun, then says, “Time to get on it then,” and disappears out into the hall.

“Charming,” Sansa jokes, right as Arya blusters into the kitchen, Gendry on her heels.

“Is everybody already here?” Arya asks, immediately going to the fridge and swiping a beer. 

“Hey!” Robb cries, but Gendry holds up his pack of beer in reassurance, and Robb pouts but says nothing further.

“Yeah, Bran, Meera and Rickon are outside.”

“Sweet,” Arya says, popping the cap of the beer off on the countertop. “No Jon?”

 _Perfect,_ Sansa thinks. _A natural way to bring it up again._

“I invited him, but he said no,” Sansa says. “Something about having to bring the twins?”

Robb and Arya nod sagely, like they understand what that means, and then Robb takes Jeyne’s hand and leads her out of the kitchen.

“Do you think he just didn’t want to come because _I_ invited him?”

Arya frowns at her, jumping up onto the counter and crossing her legs. Sansa pushes her feet off the counter, rolling her eyes, and Arya huffs but obliges, instead swinging her feet.

“Jon feels like a party crasher when he brings the twins to these kinds of things,” Arya explains. “We’ve all tried to tell him that that’s stupid, but I think he just kind of got used to staying in and missing out in Castle Black.”

“That _is_ stupid.”

Arya shrugs. “Eh, I get it. I love those kids, I really do, and I love hanging out with them, but . . . I don’t know, it’s nice not to have to watch a kids movie when I hang out with you guys.”

“Kids movies are great,” Sansa says, a little offended at the implication that watching one would be a chore; _especially_ when it’s with Jon’s kids.

“There’s too many songs and they’re all so . . . bright.”

“Yeah, because they’re for _kids.”_

“Exactly,” Arya says, raising her beer as if she’s proven her point and Sansa has come around to her side. “And we’re not kids. And like, not to rain on Jon’s parade, because it’s worked out well for him and I know he wouldn’t change a thing, but I’m only twenty-five. It’s nice to be able to drink more than I should and watch a horror movie and swear my fuckin’ mouth off and not have to worry about it.”

Arya jumps off the counter. “Jon’s always welcome to everything, because he’s our family, but we’ve all not had kids yet for a reason. Jon knows that.”

Arya disappears out of the door, and Sansa hears her shout at Rickon about eating all the chips, but Sansa lingers in the kitchen, staring at her glass of wine.

Jon shouldn’t _have_ to know that. His kids are a part of him, and if _he_ wanted a night to himself then, sure, he can have that, but he shouldn’t be uninvited from things because of them. It doesn’t seem right to Sansa.

And especially not over something as inconsequential as a _movie._ Quite frankly, if Sansa had been alone, she probably would have put a Disney movie on anyway.

But she won’t upset the status quo. Robb and Arya have known Jon for much longer than she has, _years_ longer, since before he had kids, even. They probably have a whole _thing,_ and Sansa doesn’t need to come barging in and ruin in. She’s known Jon for two months for gods sake, she hardly gets to decide what his relationship with Robb and Arya is like.

Except –

This is _her_ party, her house. _She’d_ invited him, not Robb or Arya or Bran or Rickon.

_Sansa._

She pulls her phone from her back pocket, knowing it’s too late for him to come now. It’s almost seven, and the kids will be in bed soon, so tonight is a loss.

Still, she types out a text, then puts her phone on silent and leaves it on the counter so she isn’t tempted to see what he says back. She pours her glass of wine out in the sink, her own little rebellion, because she’s way past the years of thinking she needs alcohol to have a good time, and fuck Arya for implying that the night would be shit without it, and then goes outside to spend time with her siblings.

When they all leave, after having watched a _terrifying_ horror movie on Arya’s promise that it’s great (Sansa is sure she won’t sleep at all tonight), Gendry carrying Arya on his back and Robb stumbling a little as he goes down the steps and onto the pavement, Rickon, Bran and Meera in spare rooms because Rickon and Meera had had too much to drive the three of them back to their apartment, Sansa finally picks up her phone.

There’s a variety of notifications on her phone, Facebook messages and news article and Instagram recommendations, and when she unlocks it she sees the messages icon down the bottom with a red _2_ notification.

Her heart speeds up, despite itself, and Sansa takes a deep breath and reminds herself that she’d not even texted him anything particularly wild.

When she opens her conversation with him, the first thing that comes up is a video, and Sansa has to take a deep breath before she presses play.

Frozen is playing on the TV, _Let it Go_ blaring loud and clear, and then the camera swivels a little to Lyra and Will, who are both dancing on the floor in front of the TV in a terrible, but adorable, imitation of Elsa. The camera switches around, to Jon’s face, and fuck he looks so cute – but when doesn’t he, Sansa laments – and he’s smiling softly, and Sansa’s heart feels fit to burst, and then Idina Menzel sings a particularly high note that is immediately followed by Lyra and Will singing it, too (though shouting is probably a more accurate description), and Jon’s face pulls into a dramatic down turn of horror. But he smiles up over his phone and to the kids, his whole face soft, and even though she’d had a great night with her siblings - . . . she wishes she’d been there, with them.

The video ends, and Jon’s following text reads _really? This is what you want?_

Sansa swallows harshly. She wishes she’d had that wine now, just for the courage to text back what she wants to, and then sets her phone down, biting her lip.

She pulls open the fridge, takes out one of the leftover slices of pizza and nibbles on it, then fills a cup of water and drinks it in one go, then eats more pizza before finally she thinks, _no, fuck it._

Before she can change her mind, she types out her reply and hits send, and then she drops her phone onto the countertop in horror, her moment of courage abandoning her.

Three little dots appear, then disappear, and Sansa scrolls back up to the first text she sent to read it all over, just to wallow in how stupid she is.

_When I invite you places, always assume I mean the twins, too_

_Ps. I love kids movies. I can practically recite the little mermaid line for line_

The video is there, followed by Jon’s _really? This is what you want?_

Her responding text hangs there, taunting her as three dots appear _again._

_More than anything._

Sansa has had a shower and slipped into bed by the time he finally replies, and she hates how eagerly she opens it. 

_Yeah. I wouldn’t change it for the world._

It’s . . . it’s fairly innocuous, really. And when she reads back over her preceding text, it feels much less mortifying. She could have meant anything, really; that she wants to be with any random kids, or maybe her own. Rather than what she’d really meant, which was that she wanted to be with _Jon_ and Will and Lyra.

Obviously he’s going to assume that she hadn’t meant that, and had responded appropriately. She’s definitely just a friend to him, maybe even just someone who’s a babysitter, and Sansa needs to accept that that’s okay. Jon doesn’t owe her anything more than that. And he obviously never thought of her as anything more than that, because he’d said only last night that he doesn’t date, upcoming date an anomaly.

It’s her own fault for falling for someone who’s committed to someone else – or two someone else’s, as the case may be. She should have known better than to indulge in fantasies.

She sets her phone down on her bedside table, and despite the fact that this might be the usual time of night that Sansa settles back into her pillows and attempts to put herself to sleep by spreading her thighs and slipping her fingers between them, she resolutely does not today.

And every time her thoughts drift over to Jon, wondering what he might be doing, well . . . she tries not to let them linger.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The date is not going well.
> 
> Jon thinks it’s probably his fault, because he definitely showed up feeling like shit and like he wanted to turn around and go home, which is was to be expected because Sansa had shown up to his house, bright and cheery, and had swooped in with Lyra and Will to save him from their questions about where he was going, had then proceeded to straighten his collar, pop open his top button, and swipe her hand through his hair, nod sagely and say, “Much better.”
> 
> Suffice it to say, Jon has been a wreck ever since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it be date night ;) 
> 
> please enjoy some inner turmoil from Jonny boy, and for those of you who expressed some concerns over the Starks' previous actions, please read my authors note at the end! 
> 
> love ya'll xx

In the week leading up to his date with Val, Jon is an absolute mess.

Well, he’s actually been a mess since Robb made that call while Jon was with Sansa and he’d accept to go a date while in _front_ of her. He’s still a little mortified about that one, honestly.

But what could he do? He’d amiably agreed to the date the week before, when Robb had said he knew a woman, and at the time Jon had just said he’d be open to the date to both shut Robb up, and with the hopes it might squash some of his thoughts about Sansa.

And then Robb had called while he was with her, and all Jon could do was hopelessly stare at the woman he’s come to care for much too quickly and think _what am I going to say? No, I don’t want to go on a date because I’m hopelessly gone for your sister?_

Jon hadn’t thought that would go down well, but now that the date is getting closer and closer Jon wishes more and more than he’d just come up with _something._

The closer it gets, the less he wants to go; made worse by the fact that Robb, who had been going to babysit, bails the day before, claiming a work emergency that’s taking him down to the Riverlands and Jeyne with him.

Jon asks Arya, but she replies with an ambiguous statement about already having plans. She offers to cancel them, and Jon knows she would if he asked, but he also knows she doesn’t really want to, and Jon doesn’t want to ask her to.

But to ask Sansa . . . it feels wrong, and even the idea of it makes his stomach twist. He isn’t quite sure why he feels awkward doing it, because if it were for any reason other than a date, he’d have no qualms.

But if he goes down that train of thought too far, some uncomfortable truths start to make themselves known, and Jon prides himself on his honour.

Sansa Stark is strictly off limits, and there’s nothing to be done for it.

So he might as well just go on this stupid date, and for that he needs a babysitter.

Still, he hesitates.

It’s Robb, in the end, who has it organised.

_Hey anyway so I felt bad about getting you this date and then ditching on babysitting_

_I asked arya if she was doing it and she said she was out_

_So I figured you didn’t have anyone yet_

_And I texted sansa and she said she’s cool to do it so_

Jesus fuck, couldn’t Robb just butt _out_?

Jon rubs his forehead, knowing his frustration is not borne from Robb or the situation, not really.

He’s just . . . Jon has never had someone who he considers a partner.

Ygritte was . . . it’s hard to explain what Ygritte was. If he’d not had the kids with her, Jon is pretty sure that he could have happily moved on with his life, no need to let his thoughts linger with her like they do. He certainly wouldn’t have married her. But he _did_ have children with her, and while he’ll love her forever for it, Jon can’t imagine any version of his life in which she’d been his partner, the person he’d stood beside and who stood beside him while they fought the world together.

Robb and Arya, his two closest friends in the entire world, are the closest Jon has ever come to knowing someone has his back all the time, without him asking. But they’ve got their own lives to live, their own partners to face the world with, and Jon cherishes and values familial and platonic relationships, he really does, but it isn’t the same.

When Jon imagined the rest of his life, he’d always thought that he’d face the next few years alone, raising the kids and getting them into their teenage years, and then he’d find someone, someone kind and sweet, maybe with kids of their own, and he’d build something with her. She’s been faceless for a lot of years now, but these days . . .

Gods, sometimes Jon hates how much of an emotional person he is. It leads to these terrible situations in which he’s pining after his best mates’ _sister,_ imagining a life with her, when she clearly doesn’t reciprocate any feelings at all. And he can only imagine how horrifying his incorrigible pining would truly be to her, considering what he’s had hinted to him about her past. She likely isn’t in the right headspace for another relationship, and Jon truly can’t fault her for that.

He’s such a fucking mess.

A brooding, pining, heartsore _mess._

Sansa doesn’t need him staring after her with lovesick eyes. She just got _divorced_ for fucks sake, and from a guy that the Stark’s all obviously hated.

Maybe this date will go really well. Maybe Val will be the complete opposite to Ygritte. Maybe she’ll be just what he needs.

The date is _not_ going well.

Jon thinks it’s probably his fault, because he definitely showed up feeling like shit and like he wanted to turn around and go home, which is was to be expected because Sansa had shown up to his house, bright and cheery, and had swooped in with Lyra and Will to save him from their questions about where he was going, had then proceeded to straighten his collar, pop open his top button, and swipe her hand through his hair, nod sagely and say, “Much better.”

Suffice it to say, Jon has been a wreck ever since.

And Val is . . . she’s . . . she’s fine. Nice, vivacious, brutal in her honesty and fairly uncomplicated. Once upon a time, she’s the type of girl he would have been drawn to. He would have taken her hiking, or on some other similar such date, and then fucked her afterwards, likely to little objection from her about putting out on the first date. They would have carried on like that for a while, months, or maybe years if Ygritte were any indication, but it never would have worked out in the long run.

She’s just not what he’s looking for, not anymore.

He’s pretty sure he’s not what she’s looking for, either, and instead of feeling at all insulted, he’s just relieved.

Half way through the date, as they talk about a game of ice hockey that Jon definitely didn’t watch, his phone dings with a text from Sansa.

Val tells him to go ahead and check it, because she knows he has kids and that it could be important, and the text is from Sansa. It’s just a video, and Jon wants desperately to watch it, but that would be rude.

“Everything okay?” Val asks, sipping her beer as he sets his phone back down.

“Yeah,” he dismisses. “Just a little video of the kids, I’ll watch it later.” 

“Is it their mother looking after them?”

Jon swallows and looks away. “No. Their mother . . . isn’t in the picture.”

Val goes quiet, and takes another large drink. “Sorry,” she says, and she does sound it. “You just looked a little like you were kicked in the stomach. I figured there must be a story there, but Robb said you hadn’t dated since you broke up with their mum.”

“I haven’t,” he says, because there’s nothing else _to_ say. He isn’t going to see Val again, no need to relive the horror of what happened with Ygritte.

Or open the can of worms that is his feelings for Sansa.

“Right,” she says, and perhaps it would have awkward for someone else, but Val isn’t that type of girl.

Once upon a time, Jon would have been relieved. He used to like that kind of confidence.

Now he just feels woefully unmatched.

“So, look,” Val says, only a few moments later. “You and I both know this isn’t going very well. You seem like a good guy, but - . . .”

“Yeah,” Jon replies, voice rough with relief. “I’m sorry.”

Val raises a brow, and huff’s a laugh. “Trust me Jon, it’s not your at fault. Though I think I’d like a few choice words with Robb . . .”

This time it’s Jon turns to laugh, the most light hearted he’s felt all day. “I feel about the same,” he agrees warmly. “Shall I get the check?”

“Sure,” Val agrees, and leans down to get her wallet.

Jon doesn’t argue; she doesn’t the seem the type who’d appreciate it.

They walk out of the restaurant together, each of their jacket’s folded over their arms.

“Do you need a lift?” Jon offers, wondering if she’d driven here like he had.

She glances up at him from fiddling on her phone, then gives him a small smile. “That’d be great actually?”

The walk to his car is actually quite comfortable, unlike the entirety of their date, and Jon thinks how funny it is that he gets along with the person much better when they’ve established it isn’t romantic.

Funny how resistant he was to having a date.

“So, wanna watch that video of your kids?” Val asks as they reach his car.

He looks over at her, surprised.

“I kind of love children,” she admits. “I don’t want my own, but from a distance they’re pretty cute.”

Jon chuckles, then agrees. They slide into his car, out of the chill of the autumn night, and then Jon clicks open the video and displays his phone between the two of them so they can both watch.

He can’t see Lyra, the camera front-facing and pointed at Will sitting on Sansa’s lap. Will is staring enraptured at the screen, though Jon can tell from the little crease between his brows that he’s scared.

Jon doesn’t need to see the TV to know that _The Little Mermaid_ is on; he can hear the tune of Ursula’s Poor Unfortunate Soul’s playing. Jon’s mind is immediately thrown to last Friday, when Sansa had texted him saying that she wished he and the kids had come, and that she’d happily watch Disney movies. The implication had been that she’s happy to watch Disney movies, if she gets to do it with them, but Jon can’t really be sure that that’s what she’d actually been saying. He spent much too long trying to think of a reply to her, and ended up trying to go with something innocuous, something to test the waters, but her responses had not shed any clarity on the matter.

It’s consumed his thoughts since then, of course, and has given him plenty of opportunity to second guess himself.

In the video, Sansa bounces Will in her lap, Will clutching desperately at the arm she has wrapped around his middle, and Jon’s heart pangs at the sight.

He’s never seen Will put an arm around him that wasn’t Jon’s own.

Ursula’s words start up again, and suddenly Jon understands the point of the video: Sansa is proving that she loves Disney and that she’d happily watch them.

She dramatically sings along to the song, the most convoluted part of it, while Will mumbles along incoherently.

_Come on, they're not all that impressed with conversation_

_True gentlemen avoid it when they can_

_But they dote and swoon and fawn_

_On a lady who's withdrawn_

_It's she who holds her tongue who gets a man_

Will whimpers, and Jon is fairly sure it’s because on screen Ursula throws a tongue into the cauldron, and Sansa immediately stops singing to bend her head down and caress Will’s head.

“You okay, baby?” Sansa murmurs as the camera falls a bit with Sansa’s preoccupation. He can only see the roof now, not Sansa and Will, and Jon wishes he could watch them.

“Her voice!” Will cries softly.

“Do you want me to skip it?” Sansa asks.

“Don’t skip it!” Lyra shouts from somewhere.

The camera dips up again, and Sansa is dramatically wide eyed as she mouths _whoops,_ and then the video ends.

Jon knows there’s a soft smile on his face, he does, and he tries desperately to wipe it away before Val turns to him, but he can’t really help it.

“Why, Jon Snow,” Val teases, propping her chin into her palm, “you look rather smitten.”

Jon clears his throat, dropping his phone into a cupholder so he can start the car. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Val gasps, toeing her boots off so she can prop her back against the door and her feet on the seat, staring at him with wide-eyed amusement.

Jon avoids her, looking over his shoulder as he reverses out.

“Who is she?” Val asks. “And why are we here if you’ve got _her_ at home?”

“She’s Robb’s sister,” Jon grunts, pushing the car into drive much more forcefully than necessary.

Val laughs in delight, clapping her hands together. “I love a forbidden romance. So? What’s happened? Tell me _everything.”_

“Nothing’s happened. Or happening. Or whatever.”

“But you want it to,” Val presses.

“Which way is your house?” Jon asks, as they’re leaving the parking lot, hoping she’ll let it drop.

“Left. When did you meet her? Does she know you like her? Does she like you? Have you _kissed?”_

“Val, let’s not.”

“Jon, this is the most interesting conversation we’ve had all night. Don’t deny me this.”

“There’s nothing to say, okay?” he says, running his hand through his hair and tugging at the end of his curls. “She’s Robb and Arya’s sister, she just got divorced, I’ve got two kids. It’s not going to happen.”

Val goes quiet, but Jon doesn’t feel like it’s a victory. His thoughts linger with Sansa, and the video, and the reminder that those things he’s listed are very real problems.

Val seems to exist just to spite him, though, it seems.

“Those reasons are stupid,” Val says a minute later, after she’s directed him towards her house. “Well, I mean, maybe not the divorce one, because I don’t know where she’s at, but if _you’re_ ready to date then the right woman won’t care about your kids. And I don’t know Arya, and Robb _does_ seem to be the stupidly overprotective type. But he’s also quite logical and reasonable, and if you and Sansa actually had something good going, I doubt he’d mess it up.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Jon grinds out, because he _hates_ that Val has made his very real reasons feel unimportant.

If the reasons are unimportant, then Jon might be able to _do_ something about it, and somehow actually talking to Sansa about how much he likes her is much more terrifying than just accepting that it can never be.

Val doesn’t prod him anymore, which Jon is immensely glad for, and when he drops her at her house she gives him one last meaningful look – which Jon is more likely to take to heart than her having the last word – and then she disappears up her driveway and into her apartment building.

He lingers for a minute or two, to make sure she gets in, but also to steel himself before he goes back home. The whole drive back he thinks on Val’s words, and whether she’s right.

Jon is more than a little sure that Arya knows, or at least suspects, the truth of his feelings for Sansa. She’s not hinted at it, per se, but she’s a very observant person, and Jon is a pretty terrible liar. Robb definitely doesn’t know, and probably wouldn’t ever figure it out himself, but that’s fine. If Arya hasn’t brought it up yet, Jon isn’t sure that means she is inclined towards a fixed position or not. She could be biding her time, waiting to figure out the depth of his feelings, or perhaps she’s waiting for him to get off his arse; or, the worst case, she hates the idea and doesn’t want to encourage him in any way.

And Jon understands why dating your friends’ sister is such a taboo, he does. Not in the over-protective, siblings-get-to-decide-who-a-sister-can-see type of way, but certainly in the our-friendship-could-fall-apart-if-it-goes-badly kind of way.

His kids . . . well, they both love Sansa. Truthfully, though, he hasn’t really thought much about how another woman might affect them, because he’d always assumed that he wouldn’t be ready to date again for a little while. He knows that they both remember Ygritte enough to miss her, but not enough to know the role she would have played. Lyra is closer to figuring it out, of course, considering the variety of kids and families she’s exposed to at school and in general, but Will is a little further from grasping the truth.

To throw another woman into the mix seems vaguely irresponsible, especially if he doesn’t know if it could actually work.

And that’s nothing to say of how _Sansa_ might feel about taking a much more serious role in their lives. Just because she likes babysitting them doesn’t mean she fancies the notion of one day becoming something more to them. There’s a very distinct difference between taking care of them for a few hours a day and going home afterwards to playing an active role in their lives in every minute of every day.

Sansa, despite how kind she is, and how quickly he’s fallen for her, is still quite a mystery. He knows she spent a decade in King’s Landing, married to Joffrey Baratheon, and he knows she and Joffrey were in the process of getting divorced when he died. But Jon doesn’t know if they’d ever had a happy relationship, why they were getting divorced, or even how he died. He has guessed a few things here and there, but he’s never had confirmation. He has no idea if Sansa has any leftover feelings for a man who’d been her husband for so long, or whether she’s ready for another relationship.

He should probably talk to her. There’s no way that he can figure out how to act if he doesn’t know what Sansa’s feelings are.

But they’ve achieved such a nice balance, and the kids do truly adore her. Jon would hate to mess up this easy routine they’ve all settled into just because of some pesky feelings.

When he pulls up in the garage, he lingers in his car for a few moments longer, trying to get himself together. All these problems can’t be solved in one night, and certainly not so late. These are conversations to have in the light of day.

The lights in the dining room are on, but he can see the upstairs ones aren’t. The TV is on, quietly filling the space, and when Jon rounds the corner he sees Sansa sprawled out on the couch, fast asleep.

He muffles a chuckle and leaves her for a second to go up and check on the kids. They’re both dead to the world, tucked into their blankets, and he gives them both a kiss on the forehead before heading back downstairs.

This time when he comes into the living room, Sansa is sitting up, blinking away the sleep in her eyes.

“Jon, hey,” she says around a yawn. She’s so fucking cute. “How’d it go?”

“Not great,” he answers honestly. Did he imagine the small smile on her face? “And here? That video was fantastic, by the way.”

“I thought you’d like it,” she says, standing from the couch. “We were completely fine. They were a little unsettled going to bed, but we got there in the end.”

“Thanks for coming, Sans,” he says, following her back into the kitchen where her bag is. “I really appreciate it.”

“I know you do,” she replies softly, her back to him.

Jon hesitates, thoughts drifting back to what Val said. Gods, he really does want her. Would it be so terrible for something to happen between them?

“I better head off,” Sansa says, before he can gather the courage to say anything. “I’ll see you next Thursday.”

“Earlier, I’m sure,” Jon says, smiling a little.

“I’m sure,” she agrees, and then disappears out the door with a wave over her shoulder.

When the door is shut behind her, Jon knocks his head against it, forearms bracing either side of his head.

What is he going to _do?_ He is so utterly and completely taken by her.

“Daddy?”

Jon spins around, catching sight of Lyra standing at the bottom of the stairs, clutching her teddy to her chest.

“How was your date?” she asks as he reaches her, scooping her into his arms.

“Who told you it was a date?” he asks as she rests her head against his shoulder, nuzzling into his neck.

“Robb,” she admits quietly.

Jon pauses, wondering where to take the conversation. Parenting is _hard,_ and Jon never knows whether he’s doing the right thing, if what he’s said or done helps or makes things worse. But over the years he _has_ learnt that the best way to figure out what to say is to ask more questions.

“Does that bother you? That I went on a date with someone?”

Lyra goes quiet for several long moments while Jon makes his way up the stairs.

“I don’t know,” she says finally. “If she’s nice like Sansa, or Yaya, I think it would be okay.”

Jon’s heart thuds painfully in his chest.

“She was nice,” Jon tells her as they reach Lyra’s room. “But I don’t think I’ll see her again.”

“Oh.” Lyra’s brows bunch together as she stares up him as he lowers her back into bed. “Why not?”

“We didn’t have much in common,” Jon tells Lyra, brushing her hair back. “But that’s okay, pumpkin.”

Lyra goes quiet for a long time, but she stays staring at him, so Jon knows she has something else to say.

“I miss mummy,” she admits finally. Jon’s throat feels clogged immediately. “But I know that you and mummy didn’t love each other anymore. I want you to find someone, like Ariel and Prince Eric.”

Jon swallows harshly, brushing away her hair as he wonders yet again what he could possibly say to that.

“I miss her, too,” Jon says quietly. “Just because we weren’t together, doesn’t mean I didn’t love her. She was a big part of my life, and she gave me you and your brother. I miss her, too.”

“But she wasn’t your Ariel.”

He gives her a small, gentle smile. “No, baby, she wasn’t my Ariel. But I don’t want you to worry about that, okay? I’m fine, I promise.”

He hesitates for a moment, then asks, “Are you doing okay? I know this was such a big change, moving down here.”

Lyra shrugs, looking away from him and down to her teddy. “I miss my friends,” she tells him quietly. He wishes she’d told him sooner, he would have done something. Has she been unhappy this whole time? Is she struggling with the new school? Are the kids not being nice to her? “But I like this new school. Ms. Mordane gives me cool puzzles, and lets me do harder work than the other kids. Mr. Thorne always got angry at me when I finished early. But it’s not my fault that his questions were stupid.”

He’s relieved that the new school is to her liking; he’d been worried about her finding her footing, because he knows how mean small groups of kids can be. Will, while the primary reason for choosing this school because of their help with special needs kids, is pretty content to just sit on his own and play. But Lyra likes the social aspect of school, and he’d been worried a small class would take that from her.

“And the kids? Are you getting on with them?”

She shrugs again. “I like Alysanne,” she says, and Jon recognises the name from a couple of Lyra’s stories. “And Oliver.”

“Do you want me to organise a playdate with them?”

She perks up suddenly. “Can Sansa come?”

Jon blinks, surprised. “Uh, I guess I can ask her.”

Lyra smiles widely up at him, the biggest smile he’s seen from her tonight. “I _love_ going to the park with Sansa.”

“I’m glad you’re getting on so well with her,” Jon says, feeling unsure of what he should say. It feels so delicate, when the topic is Sansa.

“She’s so great,” Lyra agrees enthusiastically. “She –“

Lyra stops suddenly, narrowing her eyes up at him, and Jon feels instantly wary.

“What?”

“Maybe _Sansa_ is your Ariel!”

Lyra’s wide eyes and gaping mouth don’t encourage Jon the way it might have; instead, he’s instilled with panic, fearful that Lyra will bring this up with Sansa when Jon has absolutely no idea whether she’d be receptive to the idea.

“Baby, I don’t want you to bring this up with Sansa, okay?”

Lyra pouts, slapping her hands against the covers. “Why?” she whines.

“Sansa isn’t interested in dating at the moment,” Jon tells her. He doesn’t know whether it’s true, though he thinks it likely, but he’s saying it anyway because it might get the idea out of Lyra’s head.

“Have you asked her that?”

In times like these, Jon wishes he were a better liar.

“Oh my goodness, dad, you’re terrible at asking her things. Do I need to ask her myself?”

“Lyra, baby, I need you to listen to me on this, please. I don’t know how Sansa feels about dating, but I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”

“But you like her? Like Ariel?”

Jon bites his lip and looks away from Lyra. “Maybe,” he relents, because that feels innocuous enough.

“That’s a yes, isn’t it?” Lyra teases, digging her toes into his stomach.

Jon rolls his eyes at her. “Alright munchkin, that’s enough of this now. And you promise not to mention it to Sansa?”

Lyra sighs, a big, heavy sigh, then says, “We can talk about this more later. I don’t want you to ruin this, so you’ll need some help from me of course. But yes, your secret is safe with me.”

Jon can’t help but smile down at her. She’s just so bloody _cute._

“Later,” he promises, and knows he will have to keep it. Lyra remembers these sorts of things. “And I promise I’ll tell you next time I have a date. Does that sound good?”

Lyra nods seriously. “I don’t like you keeping secrets.”

“I know, baby, but I didn’t want you or your brother to worry before I’d even met her.”

Lyra doesn’t reply, just closes her eyes, but Jon knows he hasn’t heard the last of this; this being either his dating life, or how it might pertain to Sansa. But Lyra doesn’t open her eyes again, so he just leans down to give her a kiss and then leaves her to sleep.

He doesn’t sleep, though.

No, instead he has a shower that lasts way too long, in which he lets water rush over him as he debates whether or not he’s actually going to take himself in hand to the thought of Sansa. And after he does, after the water has washed away the evidence of it, he lingers and feels terrible about fantasizing about a woman who has obviously been through a lot, and is his best mates’ sister at that. And then, when he gets into bed, his mind runs rampant with possibilities, about how sweet it would to come home to her, to kiss her, to build and share something with her. His dreams are filled with it, too, and he wakes frequently throughout the night, chiding himself over such impossible things.

And when he wakes up the next morning to Lyra and Will snuggling into his bed, he does not think about what it would be like to catch Sansa’s eye over his kids’ head and share a fond look with her.

No. Nope. Definitely not.

Such things truly are impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to start by saying I'm so blown away by the enthusiastic response to this fic. I honestly thought I was just writing this one for myself, I genuinely didn't think people would either a) want to read or b) find it as compelling as they do. I want to thank each and every one of you for commenting, it means the absolute world to me. esp considering they're such enthusiastic comments! I genuinely can't believe that people like this fic so much that they're discussing what they think happened and coming up with explanations and theories. this story started out as - and to me, the core of is - an excuse to write single dad!jon fluff. over time, it's become so much more than that, and I can truly see that you all think so in the comments. 
> 
> that being said, some of ya'll are quite concerned over the history/backstories of the characters, and I just want to say that I understand! I've kept it ambiguous so far for a reason, so I KNOW y'all have reason to doubt the actions of certain people. however, be patient with them! once you guys know the full story, it will be up to you to decide whether you think their actions are justified or not, but until then, I do urge you not to stress too much. and I PROMISE there isn't much more of wait until we find out the whole truth. maybe three more chapters? 
> 
> please don't be discouraged by what I've said though, I just thought I'd put this here bc so many of ya'll were upset about the characters' actions in the last chapter, and I didn't want to just be repeating myself over and over. 
> 
> I feel like this sounds really harsh, but I didn't mean to be, I promise. I swear I'm just trying to be encouraging, cuz even though I've added a lot of depth and complexity to the story, the last thing I want is ya'll coming away from each chapter feeling disheartened. 
> 
> thanks for sticking with this!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Good afternoon, Mr Snow, this is Podrick Payne calling from Winterfell Primary School.”
> 
> “What’s wrong?” Jon replies, foregoing any formalities as his mind runs a mile a minute. “Are they alright?”
> 
> “There’s been an incident involving your daughter, Lyra,” Podrick says, a little hesitant.
> 
> “An incident?” Jon demands, hand clenching his hair. “What kind of incident? Is she okay?”
> 
> “She’s fine, sir, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to come in to collect her. She started a fight with another boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have some jon + kiddies bonding!!!!!!!!! I DARE your heart not to melt at this!

Whenever Jon gets a phone call from the school in the middle of the day, he always panics.

At their old school, in Castle Black, he’d get calls every other day. They’d only been in their first year of school, which is difficult for most kids anyway, but his two are special cases. He knew that going in, of course, but he hadn’t been prepared for just how challenging it would be.

Will, while certainly not disobedient, has trouble focussing. He goes off into his own little world so often, for no apparent reason, and usually doesn’t grasp what he’s being told. Or, at least, he can’t repeat it back. He processes information in a different way, and more often than not the last school had treated it as a trait they needed to fix. Jon has never seen it that way, and despite how hard he’d fought against the school’s decision to treat Will like a horse they needed to break in, they’d never quite grasped that they just needed to go about teaching him in a different way. Jon had often gotten calls that Will had run off to play while they were supposed to be reading, and such things as that.

It had been one of the main reasons Jon had decided to pull them out and move them all to Winterfell.

Lyra, of course, presented her own set of challenges. She’s also not _disobedient,_ but she’s a boundary pusher. She’s constantly trying to work things out, trying to figure out weaknesses. She’s so incredibly logical, more so than most adults, and it means that she catalogues events and answers to later use in arguments and debates. People find her to be precocious, to be superior and smug, and with little ability to understand that she needs to fall in line because _they’re_ the adult and _she’s_ the child. Jon has never seen it that way – in his head, he doesn’t give a damn who a person is or how old they are; if Lyra’s right, then she’s fucking right – but the school had. He’d gotten many a call from them saying she was misbehaving, talking back to her teachers and showing disrespect.

The calls had come about once a week in Castle Black. Despite always being terrified that something had happened to one of them, the calls were repetitive. Always the same thing. They’d become a bit of a routine.

He’s not had one single call from the new school.

On the third last day of term, however, his phone buzzes while he’s on a site, talking to the foreman about the project’s progress, and Jon drops everything to answer it.

“Hello?” he answers, breathless.

“Good afternoon, Mr Snow, this is Podrick Payne calling from Winterfell Primary School.”

“What’s wrong?” Jon replies, foregoing any formalities as his mind runs a mile a minute. “Are they alright?”

“There’s been an incident involving your daughter, Lyra,” Podrick says, a little hesitant.

“An incident?” Jon demands, hand clenching his hair. “What kind of incident? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, sir, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to come in to collect her. She started a fight with another boy.”

“A _fight?”_ Jon blanches, perplexed. That doesn’t sound like Lyra _at all._ “Is she hurt?”

“No, she’s not hurt, but she did inflict some . . . injuries on the other boy.”

Jon stares at the ground, mouth gaping. What on _earth?_ Surely they don’t mean _his_ Lyra.

“Uh, I’m on the other side of town, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Mr Snow. See you soon.”

Jon hangs up, staring at his phone for a few long, confused seconds, and then pockets it to make his way back to the foreman.

“Hey, Edd, I’ve got to go to the school to get Lyra,” Jon says, still feeling mystified. Worried as well, of course, because she’s been in a _fight,_ but he just doesn’t really understand. He’s never even seen her squish an ant. “I’ll call you once I’ve got her home so we can finish this.”

“No problems, Jon,” Edd replies with a sympathetic tilt of his head. “Just call when you can.”

Jon leaves the site quickly, throwing his hi vis vest and hard hat in the passenger side of his Range Rover, and he tries not to speed as he taps his fingers against the wheel in agitation.

 _Lyra?_ In a _fight?_

When he gets to the school, Jon feels really rather sick over the whole thing. He’s worked himself up, he knows he has, but when he enters the school office and sees both Lyra _and_ Will sitting cuddled up together on the chairs, he thinks that he didn’t work himself up _enough._

He rushes over to them and kneels before them, lifting Will’s chin with his knuckles.

Will has been _crying,_ his face blotchy and his eyes red, and he’s still sniffling a little now.

“That boy was being mean to Will!” Lyra says hotly, her own face red from her anger. “He was so rude, daddy, and I told him to shut up but he wouldn’t, and I told him I’d make him if he didn’t, and he _dared_ me to, so of course I did! No one talks that way about Will!”

“Hey, shh, shh,” Jon hushes, using his other hand to run his thumb over Lyra’s cheek. She’s a little teary now, too, her lip wobbling, and Jon feels like his whole world is collapsing. “It’s alright, baby. I’ll get it sorted.”

Will has started to cry again, soft little whimpers accompanying his tears, and Jon doesn’t remember the last time he felt so helpless.

Jon picks Will up and slides into the seat, putting Will in his lap so he can cradle his boy’s head to his chest.

“Hey now, it’s okay, baby,” Jon whispers, kissing the top of Will’s head and rubbing his back. Lyra pushes up onto her knees beside them, resting one hand against Jon’s shoulder so that she can run her hand over the top of Will’s head. No matter what the principal says, Jon is so proud of her. She’s a sweet little girl, and Jon won’t reprimand her for standing up for her brother. “I’ll make it better, I promise.”

Jon catches sight of a tall woman with short blonde hair enter the room, somehow managing to look both extremely stern and like she doesn’t want to interrupt them.

“Mr Snow, I’m Principle Tarth. If I could talk to you for a moment in my office, please.”

Will whimpers again, fist clenched tightly in Jon’s shirt. “No, don’t leave!”

Jon eyes flutter closed, his heart clenching and his throat burning. He _hates_ this. He hates whoever has made his kids so upset.

“I have to talk to your principle, little one,” Jon murmurs. He puts his much larger hand over Will’s rubbing his thumb over the back of Will’s hand in that way that Jon has learnt will get Will to release his fist. “I’ll be back soon. Do you have some toys you can play with?”

“Why are you leaving me?” Will asks, lip trembling.

Jon feels _terrible,_ and it feels like his muscles lock up in their desire to just stay put, cradling his son and trying to stop his tears.

“It’s only for a moment, munchkin, then I’ll be back. Do you have a toy?”

Principle Tarth leaves the waiting room for a second while Will continues to plead with Jon not to leave, and then she returns with a little toy car in her hand.

She kneels down in front of the three of them, then says, “Will, would you put out your hand for me?”

Will turns to her, likely debating whether he’s going to follow the instruction, then silently holds his hand out.

Principle Tarth puts the toy car in his hand, then folds Will’s fingers around it. “Now, I have a very special job for you. I want you to find the most creative race track around the office that you can. Does that sound good?”

Will stares down at the car, spinning its wheels with his fingers.

“And when I come back, I want you to show me what you came up with. Deal?”

Will slides from Jon’s lap, staring down at the car.

“Is that a deal, Will?” Principle Tarth repeats.

Will looks up to her with serious eyes. He nods once, and then falls to knees, rolling the car on the ground.

“Do I get a car, Principle Tarth?” Lyra asks with excitement.

Ms Tarth looks at Lyra with a pondering set to her lips, and then says seriously, “I have something else for you, Lyra. A book. It’s a very special book, and I think you’ll like it.”

Lyra gasps. “I _love_ books.”

“I know,” Ms Tarth says, standing up. Will runs the car over her toes, and then crawls away from them all, thoroughly occupied. “I’ll get it for you.”

She returns with a thick book in hand, and hands it over to Lyra. “Now, this book is very special to me, so you have to be careful with it,” Ms Tarth says, while Lyra looks over it with wonder. “It’s a book about knights. Do you know what knights are, Lyra?”

“They’re special soldiers,” Lyra answers, running her hand over the cover of the book. “They protected royalty.”

“They did,” Ms Tarth confirms. “And they had a very strict set of rules, one of which was that they avoided violence whenever they could.”

Lyra glances up at Ms Tarth sheepishly, biting her lip.

“I’m going to lend this book to you, and I want you to read it very carefully. And when you’re done, I think you should come to my office and we’ll have some tea and talk about it. Does that sound good?”

Lyra grins up at Ms Tarth, hugging the book to her chest.

“That was amazing,” Jon comments as the principle gestures for him to sit opposite her desk.

“Kids are very special, Mr Snow,” Ms Tarth says, folding her hands on her desk in front of her. “They’re all individuals who are trying to learn to fit into the world. My job is to figure out how to best communicate with each one, so that I can teach them what they need to know to survive.”

“That’s very practical of you,” Jon says, feeling slightly uncomfortable at her no-nonsense attitude. The principle at Castle Black had been very different to Ms Tarth, and had never really understood that each child needed to be treated differently.

“I like things to be done a certain way, Mr Snow, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand that they are still people.”

He feels like she’s waiting for a response from him, but he doesn’t really have anything to say.

“Lyra said something about a boy being mean to Will,” Jon says instead, pressing his hands together.

Ms Tarth sighs, and looks down at the papers on her desk. “Yes, the boy made a comment about Will missing school for his speech pathology appointment yesterday, and when Lyra challenged him over it, Tim made some rather . . . rude remarks about Will’s disability, which is what prompted Lyra’s violence.”

Jon’s heart feels crushed at the same that his fingers twitch in anger. Some boy would _dare_ say anything to Will about his autism? And Lyra is the one getting in trouble over it? No, that just won’t do.

“I’m afraid I’m rather inclined to agree with my daughter’s defence of my son, Ms Tarth,” Jon responds, his voice harsh in his anger.

Ms Tarth sighs, leaning forward in her chair. “Tim will also be punished for his words, I assure you. But Lyra broke the boy’s nose, Mr Snow. That type of behaviour won’t be tolerated, not for any reason.”

Jon rubs his forehead, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing his thumbs into his eyes. He agrees, of course he does. He doesn’t want her learning that that’s the way to express her anger.

But it’s delicate, because he is proud of her for standing up for her brother. Especially considering Will has little ability to stand up for himself, but still gets so upset by what others say.

“I’ll talk with her,” he promises finally, removing his hands from his face. “I don’t tolerate violence at home either, I assure you. But I won’t ask her to stop defending Will. _Especially_ if he’s being made fun of because of his intellectual capacity.”

“This will be a delicate situation with Tim’s parents, I’m sure you agree,” Ms Tarth says hesitantly. “To be honest with you, I would much rather Tim receive the more severe punishment. He made some rather cruel comments, and I’ve seen children lash out at much less than what Will and Lyra endured. I will do what I can to make sure that Tim sees a reprimand for what he said, but I’m afraid there’s not much more I can do. Not now she hurt him so badly. In future, she would help her brother a great deal more by coming to me directly. In other circumstances, Tim might even have faced grounds for an expulsion today.”

Jon doesn’t know how he feels about that. Glad, of course, because he obviously wants to know that the school would handle any prejudice against Will so harshly; but horrified, too, because what could that boy have possibly said to warrant such a thing?

Ms Tarth sighs. “As it is, however, I’m afraid I’m going to have to suspend Lyra for the remainder of term.”

“You can’t _suspend_ her, I –“

Ms Tarth holds up her hand, and Jon shuts his mouth.

“It will be an in-school suspension,” she says, not even looking at him. She’s signing the paper she has before her, then hands it over to him. It’s a notice of the suspension, and Jon can’t quite believe this is happening. “I will personally supervise her for the next three days.”

“Personally?” he questions, looking up from the notice and to her, brows pulled together.

Ms Tarth stands, and makes her way to the door.

“Lyra is a very special child,” she says eventually, hand hovering over the handle. “She’s very smart, but I think her intelligence is so much more than her academic ability. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Aye,” Jon replies, feeling satisfaction start to bloom in his bones despite the reason he’s been called here. More and more, Jon feels like he made the right choice in moving his family to Winterfell. Ms Tarth is only proving, yet again, that this must be true.

“I think that deserves encouragement,” Ms Tarth says with finality. “But there are others that think the opposite. What better way to ensure she sees the assistance she needs than by giving it myself?”

Jon stands, too, feeling much better about this whole situation. There’s still a difficult conversation ahead, to be sure, but this meeting could have gone a completely different direction.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jon says as she pulls open the door. “I appreciate your help, I really do.”

“Brienne,” she says, shaking his hand. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other.”

“Jon, then,” he replies, smiling a little.

When he turns back to his kids, they’re both still preoccupied with the task set by Brienne.

“Will, would you like to show me what you came up with?” Brienne asks, kneeling down by Will.

Will doesn’t look up at Brienne, but he does set about pushing the car around the chair legs and over Lyra’s lap, and once he’s done he looks up to Brienne with a questioning stare.

She smiles down at him, a big, encouraging thing, and says, “That was very creative. I’ll let you keep the car tonight, and you’ll bring it back to me tomorrow, won’t you?”

Will smiles widely at her and clutches the car to his chest.

The door to the office is pushed open roughly, and suddenly a rather harried woman is standing in the room.

“Where is he?” she demands, glaring at them all.

“Tim’s in the med bay,” Brienne replies, the warmth in her tone gone. “He’ll be fine. No need to panic.”

“Is this the boy that did it?” The woman asks harshly, glaring down at Will.

Jon immediately steps in front of Will, shielding him from her fierce gaze as he narrows his eyes at her. Behind him, Will whimpers and clutches at the back of Jon’s jeans. Jon reaches back to put his hand atop Will’s head, but he does not break his gaze with the woman.

“No, it isn’t,” Jon corrects sternly, and doesn’t bother to say that it was Lyra instead. “But I see where your kid got his bad manners.”

Jon turns back to Will and Lyra before she can say anything else, ignoring her indignant sputtering, and grabs both their bags.

“Come on, you two, let’s go home.”

Will takes Jon’s hand, jumping in front of him and putting his feet on top of Jon’s so that he’s walking as Jon does, and Lyra skips ahead of them, a big grin on her face. Jon turns back to wave at Brienne, but she’s following the woman, presumably to the med bay, a grimace on her face.

Once they’re outside the office Jon picks Will up and puts him on his hip. Will rests his head against Jon’s shoulder, fingers running over the top button of Jon’s shirt.

“Daddy, why aren’t I normal?”

Jon misses a step as he walks, just managing to stop himself from stumbling. What does he . . .? How does he . . .?

“You don’t need to be normal, kiddo,” Jon replies, his breath caught in his throat. He has no idea what to say. How do you even answer a question like that? Especially in a way that Will would understand? “You’re my baby, and I love you just the way you are.”

Will doesn’t say anything else, just continues to fiddle with Jon’s shirt. Did he say the right thing, Jon worries? Did he help? Did he make it worse? Does Will even really understand? He must, to some degree, if he’s asking as if he already knows he isn’t normal.

Jon gets them both into the car, and starts it so the heating begins, but he doesn’t pull out yet. He quickly sends a text to Robb saying that he doesn’t need to pick them up from school today, and then he turns in his seat.

Will is racing his new car over his knees and Lyra has started to read her book, the two of them abnormally quiet.

“Do you guys want to go get some ice cream?” he asks.

They both gasp in delight and shout their agreement, so Jon turns back around in his seat with determination.

He has no idea what he’s doing, and that’s true for almost every single day Lyra and Will have been in his life. But he’d been so wholly unprepared for this, even though deep down he’d known the day was coming that they would all have to confront the reality of how harsh the world can be to people like Will.

By the time they all get home, it’s late afternoon, and Jon still hasn’t called Edd back. At this point, he has very little intention to, and so sends his most reliable foreman a texted apology. Even though the kids had both been animated at the ice cream shop, they’re back to being subdued now. He gets them into the bath with little complaint, and then into their pyjamas, and then Lyra quietly asks if she can speak to him while Will disappears into his room.

Jon follows Lyra into her room, and he lingers by the door for a moment before deciding to close it. Lyra sits on her bed, tugging at the bottom of her shirt and avoiding his eye. 

“Am I in a lot of trouble?” she asks quietly.

Jon takes a deep breath, putting his hands on his knees. He’s always been so terrible at talking, at having honest conversations. He’s gotten better at it, _had_ to get better at it because of the kids, but he thinks that this would be a hard conversation no matter what.

“With the school, yes,” he replies. “You’ve been suspended, Lyra. Do you know what that means?”

Lyra looks up at him, tears in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispers.

 _Just get through the bad bits,_ Jon tells himself desperately.

“You know you can’t hit people, little one.”

“I didn’t _hit_ him,” she defends feebly. “I smacked him in the face with a book.”

That is about the most Lyra thing he’s ever heard, but –

“It doesn’t matter,” he replies, trying to find a balance between stern and gentle. “You can’t hurt others.”

“But he was hurting Will,” she says quietly. This time, when a tear falls from her eye, he scoops her up and settles her into his lap, running his hand over her head. “He was saying really mean things, daddy, and calling Will names.”

That oh so familiar protectiveness rises in him again. “Do you want to tell me what he said?”

Lyra shakes her head, her hand bunched in his shirt. “No,” she decides. “I don’t want to say them out loud.”

Jon sighs deeply, feeling a deep sadness in his chest. The only reason he has ever cared about Will’s diagnosis is because of this. Everything else, Jon can handle. He can help Will with his speech, he can put Will in intensive class to help him learn, he can give Will every opportunity that any other kid can have. None of it has ever made Jon feel ashamed, or like Will is any lesser, and he resents it when people imply that he should. 

But Jon can’t help with this. No matter how much he rages against the world, Will is always going to face some kind of prejudice, and _that_ is what Jon wants to spare him from.

“Will’s brain works differently, doesn’t it?”

Jon squeezes Lyra closer him, eyes closing as he rests his head atop hers.

“Aye, baby, it does,” he replies quietly. “It’s called autism. It means he has difficultly learning, and with things like reading and writing.”

“I don’t care,” Lyra replies decisively. “I don’t care if he _never_ learns to read or write. He’s so creative, and he has the _best_ stories, and he’s always so nice to me daddy. He lets me watch whatever I want, and he always holds my hand when I have nightmares.”

Jon rubs her back, feeling so immensely proud of her, and of Will. He wouldn’t change his kids for _anything_ , and he’ll always be grateful that Ygritte gave them to him.

“Should we go tell him that?” Jon asks her, leaning back so he can look in her eyes.

Lyra slides from his lap, agreeing as she does, and Jon follows her into Will’s room. She sits before her brother, while Jon hovers in the doorway, watching them quietly.

“Will, I want to tell you something,” Lyra announces. Will doesn’t look up, as he usually doesn’t, but both Jon and Lyra know not be discouraged by such a thing. “I want to say that you’re the best brother in the whole world, and that Tim is stupid –“

“ – Lyra –“ Jon interrupts with exasperation.

“ - and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Also that I think you tell great stories. And also that you’re very nice to me, even though sometimes I’m not very nice to you.”

Will looks up at Lyra, now, quiet as always. He reaches out to put his hands on her face, his little fingers running over her cheeks curiously. Lyra sits patiently as he does so.

“Sister,” he says finally, smiling.

A huge grin splits Lyra’s face, and she tackles him onto the bed. The two of them break into peals of laughter as they wrestle around, and Jon watches them both, smiling softly at them.

He really wouldn’t change this for anything.

Still, when he makes his way downstairs to start making dinner, leaving the two of them to some game, he does so with a heavy heart.

This won’t be the last time something like this happens. They all got off easily enough this time, but it won’t always be so. Sooner or later, Will is really going to understand that he _is_ different, and Lyra is going to have to face her anger and protectiveness much more rationally.

He pauses in the kitchen, looking around at the home he’s built with his kids, and thinks that days like today are the ones that he truly wishes he weren’t so alone. Jon pulls out his phone, because usually he calls Arya or Robb when he gets into a mood like this, and they’re always good at pulling him out of it.

But as he hovers over their names, it’s their sister’s number that feels like the better choice.

He presses Sansa’s name before he can think twice, and tells himself to be patient as he waits for her to answer.

“Hi Jon!” she answers, only three rings in.

“Hey, Sans, how are you?”

She responds happily, filling him in on her day, and when she finally gets around to asking how he is, she gives an embarrassed laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure hearing all about that must bore you,” she says, and he just knows that there’s a light pink to her cheeks.

“I love it, actually,” he corrects, leaning against the counter and fisting his shirt as he lets himself want her, for just a moment. Just wants to be near her, wants to be able to watch as she tells him what she did, wants to see her cheeks blush when she’s embarrassed instead of just picture it.

“ . . . Really?” she asks, dubious. “Surely my running from store to store trying to find paint swatches can’t be that interesting to you.”

“It is if it’s you,” he replies instantly, and immediately regrets it. _Way to come on too hard, Snow,_ he thinks, rolling his eyes at himself.

“What were you calling for, Jon?” Sansa asks a moment later, slightly breathless.

“The kids had a bad day,” he replies, deciding it’s best if he leaves their previous conversation alone. “Some boy was bullying Will, and Lyra got into a fight over it. She’s been suspended.”

“Holy _shit_ Jon, are they okay?”

He scrubs his hand across his face, frowning at the ground as he wonders how to answer that.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “They seem a bit better now, but Will asked me why he isn’t normal, and Lyra told me she knows Will’s brain works differently, so I don’t think it’s over yet.”

“Gods, Jon,” Sansa breathes. “Are _you_ okay?”

Jon groans, turning in place so he can prop his elbows against the bench and press his palm into his eyes.

“No,” he admits. “I’d love a distraction.”

Sansa is quiet on the other end while Jon wonders if he’s been too presumptuous.

“Have you started dinner?” she asks finally.

“No.”

“Great. Make it for four. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” he says, feeling a bit guilty. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll see you soon, Jon,” Sansa says firmly, and then hangs up.

Jon stares down at his phone, feeling a small smile creep up.

A better choice indeed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I hope I’m not being too presumptuous,” she says slowly, and Sansa thinks that this must have something to with Jon, but the next words out of Brienne’s mouth knock Sansa breathless. “But I knew Jaime Lannister a while back.”
> 
> Sansa’s mouth drops open, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest in protection.
> 
> “I’m sorry,” Brienne rushes to say. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” 
> 
> Sansa isn’t sure she can bear to stay here now. Sansa doesn’t know what Brienne knows, but if she knew Jaime she probably knows of what happened this year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 👀

When Arya calls and asks Sansa if she wants to join her gym, Sansa feels a little sick.

“Why?” she asks. “Do I . . . do I look . . .?”

“No, Sansa, gods _no,”_ Arya rushes to interrupt. Sansa can imagine that she’s stilled on the other end of the line. “No, it’s just, I’ve been running a self defence class for the past few weeks with this other woman, and I just thought that I’d really like it if you came, learnt a few things.”

“Oh.”

Sansa bites her lip, running her fingers over her leg in an effort to reassure herself. Sansa had been an avid visitor of her local gym in King’s Landing, at Joffrey’s insistence that she do so.

She’d dropped the habit during the divorce proceedings, and hadn’t thought twice about it since coming back to Winterfell.

But self defence sounds rather enticing. Perhaps it will make her feel a bit of control.

“That sounds good, actually,” Sansa says, surprising even herself. “Uh, when’s the next class?”

“There’s one this evening,” Arya replies with excitement. “Come in a bit early so I can fill out some paperwork. Maybe get here around five thirty?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

When Sansa shows up later that evening, Arya and Gendry are at the counter and talking quietly.

“Sansa!” Arya greets, a big smile on her face. Gendry gives her a much more gentle smile.

“Hey guys,” she says, tugging on the end of her ponytail nervously. “How are you?”

Gendry rolls his eyes. “Arya’s trying to tell me that Jeyne is pregnant.”

Sansa raises her brows in surprise. “Is she?”

“I doubt it,” Gendry replies, while Arya says, “You two are so oblivious, it’s so _obvious._ ”

“If Robb hasn’t said anything then we shouldn’t spread rumours,” Sansa says, though privately she starts to wonder if it could be true.

“You two are spoil sports,” Arya announces, but rounds the corner anyway. She leads Sansa into her office and closes the door behind them. “I’ve started filling out your form, but there’s still a couple things we can go over. I figured I’d just sign you up, but you don’t have to pay anything. I’ll give you a key card and we’re open 24/7 so you can just come whenever you’d like. If you want.”

Sansa is fairly sure she won’t, but she appreciates the fact that Arya is trying.

They sign her up quickly, then Arya leads Sansa into the hall dedicated to fitness classes.

“I’ve gotta get all the mats set up before the class starts. Brienne should be here soon to help.”

“Brienne?” Sansa asks, following Arya to the corner where padded mats are stacked.

“Yeah, she’s the self-defence teacher. She taught me. She’s actually also the principle at Winterfell Primary.”

Sansa pauses, hands clutching a mat. “Where Jon’s kids go?”

“Yeah, that’s why he picked that school,” Arya explains, “’cuz I knew her.”

“Oh,” Sansa says, thinking back to only last week, when Jon had sung this woman’s praises over how she’d handled the situation with his kids. “That’s . . . nice.”

“She’s pretty cool, I think you’ll like her,” Arya says, either unaware of Sansa’s surprise or ignoring it. “Hey, here she is now.”

Sansa turns to see a very tall woman enter. She’s got a fairly stern look on her face, but she smiles at Arya nonetheless, and pleasantly introduces herself. When they’re almost done with laying out the mats, Gendry comes in, holding a phone.

“Hey, Arya, Coca Cola are on the line, they’re saying that the drinks delivery won’t be coming tomorrow.”

“Fuckers,” Arya swears, and marches over to grab the phone from him. “This is Arya, and you better have a good reason, I made that order last week.”

Arya and Gendry disappear down the hall, leaving Sansa and Brienne alone.

“So, Arya said you’re the principle at Winterfell Primary,” Sansa says, trying to keep conversation easy and light.

“I am,” Brienne replies, a little stiffly.

“That’s pretty amazing,” Sansa praises. “I know Jon Snow, and he was telling me about the fantastic job you did with his kids. You supervised Lyra during her suspension, right?”

Brienne softens. “I did. She’s a very special girl.”

Sansa smiles, thinking on the two kids. She hasn’t seen them this week because it’s school holidays, but she misses them.

She misses Jon, too.

The family dinner that she’d crashed the day Lyra had gotten into a fight over Will had been one of the most exhausting yet rewarding nights with the Snow family so far. The relieved smile Jon had given her when she’d arrived, coupled with the lingering hug he’d bestowed upon her, had made Sansa feel a little light headed with desire. And Will and Lyra had been so subdued, so quiet, but still so happy to see her. Their conversation that evening had been as stilted as ever, and even though the twins had expressed excitement to see her, they’d both retreated to bed pretty early.

Sansa had stayed for another hour, talking with Jon about everything and nothing, about how upset he’d been during the day and what his favourite colour was. Sansa had felt like they were a _family_ that night, and she’s been avoiding going over there since because of it.

She can’t get so attached. She knows how this will go.

Brienne hesitates for a long moment, then comes to stand a bit closer to Sansa. Sansa is surprised, but waits for Brienne to say what’s on her mind.

“I hope I’m not being too presumptuous,” she says slowly, and Sansa thinks that this must have something to with Jon, but the next words out of Brienne’s mouth knock Sansa breathless. “But I knew Jaime Lannister a while back.”

Sansa’s mouth drops open, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest in protection.

“I’m sorry,” Brienne rushes to say. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” 

Sansa isn’t sure she can bear to stay here now. Sansa doesn’t know what Brienne knows, but if she knew Jaime she probably knows of what happened this year.

But Brienne isn’t spitting in her face, or throwing accusations at her, just standing quietly and anxiously.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sansa tells her quietly. There is something that seems inherently trustworthy about Brienne, even if Sansa feels wholly uncomfortable.

“I can give Arya an excuse if you want to leave,” Brienne murmurs. “I truly didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I – I - . . .” Sansa wishes she were stronger than this, that she could just push through, but just as an agreement is on the tip of her tongue, Arya pushes back into the room.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” she says, rolling her eyes dramatically. “San, I was thinking we could go over a couple things before class starts. That sound good?”

Sansa struggles through a nod.

“Hey, you okay?” Arya asks, stepping closer to Sansa.

“I’m fine,” Sansa says, even though it isn’t entirely true. Arya looks so concerned, and she’d been _so_ excited about Sansa coming today. Arya’s put a lot of effort into their relationship since Sansa came back, no matter the friction that still arises between them occasionally. The least Sansa can do is give this a go.

Arya purses her lips, obviously dubious, but Sansa puts a smile on her face – one that she’s perfected over the years, and that she can hardly be offended that Arya doesn’t notice is fake – and tells Arya that they should get started.

Arya gives her one last glance, but starts nonetheless.

It is the following afternoon that Sansa learns she was practically erased from her family.

It’s due to a passing comment from Jon that Sansa finds out. He’s on his phone when he gets back from work, having a fairly friendly conversation with whomever is on the other end, and when he hangs up and she asks who it was, he says that he’s trying to get family photos done for he and the kids.

He pauses suddenly, and looks at her intently, and then blurts, “Okay, was I that oblivious when I was younger, or did your family take down your family photos? Or did you guys not have any?”

Sansa blinks, shocked and little confused. “Uh, what?”

Jon puts his bag on the table, still looking at her like she’s the puzzle of the century.

“I didn’t know Arya and Robb had a sister until you came back,” Jon tells her, frowning a little. “They never mentioned you, but I went to your house a couple times before I moved back north. Did I seriously manage to miss you in the photos?”

He . . . he didn’t know she _existed?_

“I don’t understand,” Sansa whispers, wishing her voice didn’t sound so frail. “They just . . . never mentioned me?”

“Oh, shit, Sans –“ Jon’s hand hovers as he reaches out to her, but he seems to think better of doing so because it drops back to his side. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .” 

“I think I should go,” Sansa says quietly, rubbing her thumb over her palm. “I’ll see you later.”

Sansa blusters out the door before Jon can offer any more apologies. Her phone is to her ear as she makes her way to the car, and Robb has answered the phone before Sansa realises that she’s going to have to confront things that she hasn’t been able to yet.

“Robb, have the family photos always been up?”

Robb hesitates on the other hand, and Sansa’s hand hovers the handle of the car door.

“No,” he admits after a long pause. Sansa’s breath catches in her throat. “There was a little while where they were taken down.”

“ _Why?”_ She demands, more furious than she thought she was going to be.

Robb sighs. “Where are you? I’ll come ‘round.”

Sansa narrows her eyes, but agrees to meet him at her house. Her hands are clenched around the steering wheel the entire time home, and when she gets there she paces in the entryway while she waits.

Robb doesn’t get there much later than she does, still dressed in his work suit.

“What the _fuck,_ Robb?” Sansa demands as soon as he steps out of his car.

Robb purses his lips and locks his Mercedes, then slowly makes his way up the path and to her.

“Sansa –“

“You took down the _photos?_ You just – just _never_ mentioned me?”

Robb rubs his brow with a heavy sigh.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says feebly.

Sansa scoffs. “What, the photos just fucking fell down for multiple years?”

“Let’s go inside,” he says quietly. “I think that I – it wasn’t some big conspiracy, San, I swear.”

Sansa pushes the front door open and glares as he makes his way past her and inside. Sansa hasn’t let go of her anger when they sit down at the dining table. Robb is fiddling with his glass of water, frowning down at it, but Sansa doesn’t plan to let him off so easily.

“Well?” she demands.

Robb sighs again, pressing his palm into his eye. “I know we should have tried harder to keep touch,” Robb starts. “Gods, San, I’ll never regret anything more than just stopping calling you to see if you were okay.”

Sansa remembers it happening. To his credit, he’d tried hard to keep contact with her for a fair while; she always would tell him how fantastic everything was, how great her studies were going, how kind the Lannisters were to let her stay in their home. It wasn’t until after she’d married Joffrey that Sansa had pushed them all away much more thoroughly. Stopping answering their calls, citing how busy she was, talking only for a minute or two because, “ _Oh, Joffrey’s calling me, thanks for ringing!”_

Sansa had put a stop to their contact, she knows, but now she can admit to herself that she wishes they’d tried a bit harder. Perhaps that’s arrogant of her, to wish that they’d gone against what she’d so obviously been telling them, but perhaps it isn’t.

“It was probably maybe a year or so after you married Joffrey that mum and dad took the photos down,” Robb says quietly. “We were all so upset that you were gone, that you pushed us out.”

Sansa doesn’t say anything, but Robb rushes to add, “Gods, that sounds bad, San, I swear I’m not making excuses. Looking back, I can see how _fucked_ it was that we just accepted you didn’t want anything to do with us. I wish that I’d just . . . just got in my fucking car and come down to see for myself.”

Sansa wraps her arms around herself and looks away from him. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want anything to do with you,” Sansa whispers. “I just knew that if I spoke to you all too frequently, you’d know something was wrong.”

“We should have known anyway,” Robb disagrees.

“I did used to spout all sorts of nonsense about how great the south was, before I saw it for myself. I can hardly blame you all for believing that I loved it like I always said I would.”

“You should,” Robb says, reaching across the table for her hand. Sansa puts hers in his, and lets herself be soothed by her older brother. “You should blame us. We failed you, San. Over and over and over again.”

Sansa bites her lip, but doesn’t say anything.

Robb exhales deeply, but doesn’t take his hand from hers. “We put them back up, you know. Maybe a year after they’d been taken down. It was Bran who told mum and dad to get their heads of their arses.”

Sansa smiles a little at that, and Robb chuckles.

“It was something about, ‘ _you’re all acting as if she’s dead, just pick up the phone - and put the pictures back up while you’re at it’.”_

Sansa thinks she might remember that, actually. She’d had a flurry of calls from her family, probably around that time. She’d only ever accepted the ones from her parents, and had sent texted apologies to her siblings about how little time she had. Even from her parents, though, she’d probably spent a total of an hour talking to them over next the few weeks. And then she’d gotten sparse in answering again, and then they’d stopped calling so frequently.

“Why didn’t you ever tell Jon about me?” Sansa asks finally. “You’ve known him for years.”

“Honestly, San, I never realised that I _hadn’t,”_ Robb replies, scrubbing his face again. “Not until he had no clue who you were. I think I’ve figured it out, though.”

Sansa raises a brow at him.

“I met Jon when I was in my last year of uni. He was an apprentice with a construction company, and they were working at Winterfell U. I ran into him one day, and we just clicked. You’d already married Joffrey, maybe a couple months prior, and we were all still so torn up about it that it was difficult to talk about. I was living out of home, so any time Jon and I hung out, we weren’t at the family home anyway, where the other three lived.”

Robb glances over at her, eyes roving over her face, and then slowly continues.

“I invited Jon around for Christmas at the family home the year after, and by that time the photos were already down and none of us could bear to talk about you. He moved back to Castle Black the year after that, so by the time the photos were back up and we were ready to face what had happened, he was already gone. Arya and I obviously kept in touch with Jon, quite significantly, but more often than not we’d be the ones going up to him. Especially after the kids were born. And then with Ygritte . . . and then mum and dad. So suddenly he was handling the twins by himself, and mum and dad were gone and I’d had that gods awful fight with you, and I just . . . I was so ashamed of what I said to you, and it didn’t seem right that he be the one that I talk to it all about, considering he was so preoccupied himself. And then once you asked for my help, I would never have thought twice about telling anybody the truth of what was happening to you. Not unless you wanted me to. And Jon lived in Castle Black, so he was none the wiser to my trips down to King’s Landing.”

Sansa feels . . . she feels overwhelmed, honestly. His explanation has filled in a lot of blanks for her, it has, but she still feels . . . she doesn’t know how she feels.

It makes sense, in a detached, logical kind of way. The gods know how little she’d mentioned _them_ to anyone, especially any new people. She could probably walk into her old workspace and introduce Robb and none of them would know she had any siblings, let alone four of them.

But Jon was not a workplace acquaintance. He’s their _friend._

“There’s nothing I can . . . I can’t make up for not coming for you earlier, San, even if you didn’t want me to.”

Sansa squeezes his hand, and lets go of her anger. It niggles at her, but only a little now. She doesn’t know what he could have done differently, in truth. He didn’t know how bad it was, and she kept them all at a distance.

And when it mattered, when Sansa had finally called and asked for his help, Robb dropped _everything_ to come for her. He’d done it multiple times, for weeks on end.

No matter what had happened before that, Sansa thinks that he has already made up for it.

Her parents, though . . . well. Sansa thinks that they had more responsibility to her than Robb ever did, or ever _should_ have, at least. She knows how thoroughly she pushed them away, and she knows that if they’d intervened Sansa likely wouldn’t have taken it very well, might even have pushed them away even more than she did . . . but she still wishes they’d tried. It feels wrong to admit that to herself, because for so long she’s refused to think poorly of them because they’re gone; but she can see now that death is no excuse for doing the wrong thing by her.

“We all make mistakes,” Sansa says, hoping to at least release herself and Robb from some of their trauma.

Robb looks away from her, eyes closing.

“You don’t need to be generous, Sansa,” he mutters. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I won’t forgive _myself.”_

“It isn’t about you,” Sansa replies plainly. “We both know enough of regret to know it isn’t helpful. It doesn’t move us forward. And we _should_ move forward, Robb. I’d rather like to forget those years ever happened.”

Robb winces, and purses his lips together. He’s obviously wondering whether he should speak what’s on his mind, and Sansa waits patiently for him to come to a conclusion.

“I think I’m hardly one to say what you should or shouldn’t be telling Jon,” Robb says slowly, “but I think he’ll find out about the investigation sooner or later. You should tell him before that happens.”

Sansa drops Robb’s hand and clenches her fist beneath the table. She’s been thinking that recently, too. It’s all well and good for her to be hiding indoors, away from the prying eyes of townspeople who knew Sansa Stark before she left for King’s Landing and may have their own opinions on whether she murdered her husband, but if Jon finds out from someone else – like Brienne – or worse, the fucking _news_. . .

Yes, Sansa knows she has to tell him.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Sansa asks, standing from the table. 

“I’d love to, San.”

“. . . _conviction made for the murder of Joffrey Baratheon.”_

Jon is struck still by the name, his knife pausing halfway through chopping the carrot.

Isn’t that . . .?

But _murdered?_

“ _Petyr Baelish is a name partner at the Baratheon’s competing law firm Arryn, Royce, Baelish, and his arrest came as quite the surprise at the time. The investigation had been ongoing for months, since Mister Baratheon died in February of this year, and it was his wife, Sansa Stark that –“_

Jon drops the knife and rushes into the lounge room. He scoops up the remote and turns the noise up so he can hear clearly.

“ _\- brought in for questioning. Mister Baratheon and Ms Stark had been in the midst of divorce proceedings when he died, and while Mister Baratheon had removed his wife completely from his will, Ms Stark had allegedly started setting money aside almost a year before she filed for divorce. While the timing doesn’t exactly coincide, it was suspicious enough that Ms Stark was arrested early in the investigation for the murder of her husband. She was released not even twelve hours later, but sources close to the couple say that Ms Stark had clearly married Mister Baratheon for his family fortune, and as such his death was suspicious. But the King’s Landing District Attorney says otherwise.”_

Jon is dialling Sansa before he can even register how _furious_ he is.

She answers on the second ring, breathless and voice full of laughter. But all Jon can think is that his children are out at the park with someone who had been suspected of _murder._

“Sansa!” he barks. “Bring my children home _now.”_

“Jon?” she whispers, voice soft and confused. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Do as I say, Sansa. Bring them back _now.”_

“- ‘ _Ms Stark hasn’t been treated as suspect in months’,”_ the DA is saying, but Jon isn’t reassured at all. His fucking _children!_ “ _We were confident in our arrest at the time, and his guilt has been proven today with this conviction.’”_

The screen flicks back to the broadcaster, and Jon only realises his fists are clenched when the plastic of the remote cracks beneath his grip. Sansa mumbles her assent on the other end of the line, and then hands up.

Jon throws the broken remote on the couch, the TV still blaring, and then he rushes from the room and to the front door to wait for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!!!!!! feel free to come scream at me about this either here or on Tumblr @ladyalice101 
> 
> and I won't leave ya'll hanging, I'll update again tomorrow :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He sees Sansa’s BMW pull up out the front, and purses his lips. He regrets calling her with so much anger. He knows his frenzy was borne of emotion and not logic, and if he’d just taken one second to actually listen to the news report instead of just hear Sansa and murder and immediately call her, he would have been able to use his goddamn brain and been much more reasonable over the phone. His guilt intensifies when he sees Sansa glance up at him as she gets out of the car, her brows pulled together and biting her lip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I didn't respond to most comments on the last chapter. it was kind of overwhelming, honestly, and I don't really have much more to say other than what's said in this chapter, truthfully. 
> 
> this one was really hard to write. both for personal reasons in relation to Jon's story, as well as the turmoil that comes along with Sansa's. I know I've thus far encouraged discussion from you guys, but with this chapter specifically, I would really like to ask you to just be a bit gentle please? I don't mean to be a stick in the mud, bc I know that all this discussion and angst has been leading to this chapter, and I am TRULY grateful that you all like this story so much to have such discussions (seriously, this is one of the first times that I've actually felt like an ~author~ rather than just a writer) but yeah, this one hits a little too close to home in a lot of ways. 
> 
> with that said, I hope it brings some level of relief to ya'll. next chapter we'll be back to our regularly scheduled fluff! although, warning, it won't be up for a few days as I will have barely any time to even edit it. but it'll be out by the end of the week! 
> 
> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER 
> 
> there is significant - if not so detailed - discussion and references to previous physical and emotional abuse; as well as fairly detailed discussion about breast cancer.

Time drags, and each minute that passes only makes Jon picture worse and worse things. He’s ruled entirely by emotion, and logic finds no place in him.

His whole body is thrumming as his mind angrily blurs with images he wishes he didn’t have to see; awful, terrible things that he would never imagine from Sansa if he hadn’t so abruptly had his world shift and change.

Jon cannot _believe_ that nobody ever told him this. That it would have been kept from him – that Arya and Robb would never have mentioned a _murder_ investigation into the person taking care of his kids.

The thought of them makes him pause. He takes a deep breath, through his nose, and lets it out.

He should call Arya. She’ll be able to talk him down from this – this – whatever the fuck this. 

Arya doesn’t answer his first call, but she does almost immediately his second.

“Yo.”

“Did Sansa murder her husband?” Jon demands immediately, but before the sentence is out Jon hates himself. He hates, hates, hates, _hates,_ that he could ever have _thought_ it, let alone said it out loud, and he wishes, more than anything, that he could swallow the words back inside so they’d never see the light of day again. Not from him, not from _anyone._

It’s – it’s _Sansa,_ for gods sake. This sweet, kind woman, who has taken so much responsibility for his kids when she had no reason to; who has helped him so immeasurably, so countlessly, so selflessly.

A woman like her could never be a murderer; and doesn’t deserve his doubt or his anger. 

Arya sucks in a harsh breath. Jon groans, then pinches his nose between his fingers, squatting to the ground as his eyes clench shut.

How is he supposed to _deal_ with this?

If Jon had never had kids, if he didn’t send them so faithfully off with Sansa every other day, Jon finds it hard to believe that he would have ever entertained the thought. It just seems so wildly preposterous that Sansa could actually kill someone.

But the truth of why he’d responded so strongly, so instinctively, is startingly simple, and it’s one that none of the Starks can truly, _truly_ understand. His kids come first. Always. Over everyone and everything. It included Ygritte, when she was alive, it has always included Robb and Arya, and it’s always included himself, too; and it includes Sansa now.

He allows himself a bit of leeway, just a tad, but not so much that he loses his contrition.

“No, don’t answer that,” Jon says, because he doesn’t want her to think that he needs an answer. It feels like a slight against Sansa. 

“Do you really think her capable of that?” Arya replies anyway, a harsh and withering line to her voice.

Yeah, Jon deserves that.

“No,” he says immediately, and knows it’s true. “Is this . . . is this why you never told me about her before? We’ve known each other for _years,_ Arya, and I never knew you had a sister.”

Arya goes quiet for a long moment, so quiet that he can hear the music of the gym pounding in the background.

“Sansa and I didn’t get along as children,” Arya finally says, something unrecognisable in her voice. “We were too different. Had different dreams. And then she left. Everyone was so upset that she’d just packed up and moved down to King’s Landing like we never meant anything to her.”

“That’s –“

“Jon, you weren’t there, okay?” Arya interrupts whatever he was about to say. He isn’t sure, he just knows he would have gone to Sansa’s defence in some capacity. “Look, we know now that that’s not what happened. Obviously. But it’s what it _felt_ like. If we weren’t angry at her for leaving, we were upset that we never spoke with her anymore. It was all just . . . it was fucked, okay? She and I texted at the holidays, and that was about it. And after mum and dad died, we spoke a bit more, but it was still nothing substantial. She and I are working on our relationship, and of course I always loved her, but what did I ever have to say about a sister I had antagonistic relationship with that then disappeared?”

 _Maybe the fact that you even had a sister,_ Jon thinks, but doesn’t say.

“And Robb?” Jon challenges, even though he’s not sure Arya’s explanation has justified such a level of divide between Sansa and the Stark’s. “Why did he never say anything?”

Arya sighs again. “After mum and dad, Robb took Sansa leaving the hardest. He was always the closest to her. And he _hated_ Joffrey. He was so upset that she left, and I think a bit guilty that he hadn’t tried harder to convince her to stay. And after they got married, I think Robb was just so . . . he was so distressed, Jon. And you know him, he’s bad at talking about his feelings at the best of times.”

Jon tries to think what he would have done, if he would ever have mentioned her. He doesn’t think that Arya and Robb purposefully never said anything about Sansa. Certainly not that they actively lied, or conspired to never speak her name.

He supposes that if you don’t have anything to say about someone, why would you bring them up?

Jon knows, gods he knows, how different his upbringing was to the Starks’. He knows how different it is to have two parents to one, siblings to none, having money to being poor. But if he had an estranged sibling, would he never bring them up? It’s so hard to say. Surely a sibling is different to a friend you hardly spend any time with, or a partner that you don’t ever see again. Is there not a bond between family that speaks to forever?

He thinks of Daenerys, suddenly.

After his father had made his presence known by way of leaving Jon a considerable amount of money in his will, Jon had sought Daenerys out. She was the only living family he’d had at the time, though he’d learnt from her that he’d also had half-siblings and a step-mother that had passed around the time Jon was born (as well as an uncle that had also passed, but who Daenerys had given _very_ little about away). Daenerys had been pleasant enough for a time, he supposes. A little wild, with ideals very different to Jon’s own, but good enough that he’d made an effort to get to know her and spend time with her for quite a while. Once she started prying into what exactly Rhaegar had left him, though, he’d taken a step back; and once he’d been slapped with a contestation of Rhaegar’s will by Daenerys, he’d stopped contacting her altogether.

She still calls him, occasionally, but he never answers. 

Arya and Robb know about Rhaegar, and the inheritance.

He doesn’t think he ever told them about Daenerys, though.

“Honestly, Jon, you’d have to ask Robb why he didn’t tell you about Sansa,” Arya is saying. Jon tunes back in, thinking that maybe he doesn’t understand how this all could have played out the way it has, but that he doesn’t have to. He can’t change it now, and Arya and Robb and Sansa’s relationship is none of his business. It has very little to do with him, what Arya and Robb choose to share and say.

He sees Sansa’s BMW pull up out the front, and purses his lips. He regrets calling her with so much anger. He knows his frenzy was borne of emotion and not logic, and if he’d just taken one second to actually _listen_ to the news report instead of just hear _Sansa_ and _murder_ and immediately call her, he would have been able to use his goddamn brain and been much more reasonable over the phone. His guilt intensifies when he sees Sansa glance up at him as she gets out of the car, her brows pulled together and biting her lip.

Lyra and Will jump out of the car, and while Will lingers down on the lawn, crouching down to likely watch the ants run through the grass, Lyra races up him, a big smile on her face.

“Daddy, daddy, Sansa let me go on her shoulders! She spun me ‘round and ‘round so fast I got sick! She said we had to stop then, because it was making us both dizzy, but I convinced her to keep going. And then _Sansa_ got really dizzy, and she had to put me down, but then Will and I caught her and took her to our lair so we could _eat_ her!”

Lyra is bouncing on her feet as she recounts the story, slapping her hands against his knees to emphasize her points.

“Sounds like you had lots of fun,” Jon says, feeling like his throat is closed up. He hates this. He hates this position that he’s been put in, that he’s put himself in. He hates that whatever this all is has happened to Sansa, he hates that he got so mad he yelled at her, he hates that she’s walking up to him with a wary look on her face.

Will is clutching Sansa’s hand, jumping up and down around her, but Sansa easily wrangles him back to her side each time he goes to run back over to the lawn.

“Hey, Jon,” Sansa greets, but he can see how nervous she is.

“Hey, Sansa,” he says calmly, trying to tell her with just those two words that he’s not angry anymore. That this isn’t going to go the way he’d made it seem. She looks only marginally relieved, but still she turns her head from him. 

“Why’d you make us come back?” Will accuses, nudging his foot against Sansa’s curiously. He doesn’t look up at Jon, still at his own and Sansa’s feet touching each other, but Jon knows the question is directed at him.

“I need to talk with Sansa,” Jon replies, again making sure that his voice is calm and soothing. Not that it would have been _angry,_ not anymore, but he doesn’t want her misconstruing any urgency for anger. 

Sansa crouches down, rubbing Will’s back. “It’s alright, we can play another time,” she says, and he assumes she’s trying to be reassuring, but she glances up to him, worry in her eyes, and then quickly back down to Will.

“Aye, another time,” he agrees quickly, taking the opportunity to reassure her that he _does_ still trust her as it presents itself.

When Sansa glances back up at him this time, her look lingers just slightly.

“See?” Sansa says, and tweaks Will’s chin.

“Daddy, can we watch TV?” Lyra asks suddenly, tugging on his hand. Normally he’d say no, because it may be a Saturday but it’s only the evening, and TV is saved for their family movie, but –

Well, it’s going to guarantee them some privacy.

“Sure,” he says. “But when we come back inside, it’s going to be bath time, alright?”

“Alright!” Lyra agrees, eagerly reaching up on her toes to grab the handle. Will follows her in, and then Jon shuts both doors, so they can’t see or hear.

Then he turns back to Sansa.

She’s shifted away from, standing at the end the landing, face pale and hands trembling.

“You know,” she whispers.

“Aye,” he says, voice gruff with regret. He doesn’t move closer to her, for fear that he might scare her. The picture is becoming much too clear, and the suspicions Jon held about her previous marriage seem to all be becoming too real. He doesn’t want her to think he’s approaching her with anything other than comfort, and he knows he didn’t paint a reassuring picture over the phone. He needs to give her space. “I know. It was on the news.”

Sansa huffs, a trembling thing, and blows a strand of her hair from her face. “They hate me,” she tells, as awkward and unsure as he’s ever seen her. “They were always so eager to twist the facts and make it look like I did it.”

He doesn’t think that she did, despite what anger and fear had compelled him to assume. He didn’t need a DA or a judge and jury to tell him that, once he’d thought on it for more than one second.

And, really, the news here had been much kinder than what she’s implying; even if they _had_ brought Sansa’s involvement in an investigation that ultimately had nothing to do with her.

“Well?” she demands. “Are you going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

“If I did it.”

The question near on makes him fall to his knees with guilt. There is so much that Jon already regrets about this conversation, but this, more than anything else, makes him feel weak. But he did this himself; he made her doubt him. _He_ made her doubt that he would believe her.

“No,” he says, so firmly he hopes that it conveys all he _truly_ means. That he’s not going ask, and that he doesn’t think she did it. “Petyr Baelish was convicted today.”

She lets out a deep, relieved sigh. “Good,” she mutters, then swipes her hair away from her face.

“I’m sorry I got so angry,” Jon says after a long moment, fingers twitching with the desire to take her hand. “I was just . . . I don’t know. I guess I got too caught up in my shock to realise how foolish I was being.”

Sansa presses the heel of her palms into her eyes and turns away from him. “You can’t ever truly know a person,” she says finally. “You can get close, but . . . You have kids, Jon, kids that you leave alone with me. Of course I understand why you’re angry. I suppose I didn’t tell you because I’d hoped that you wouldn’t ever send them off with me and have a tiny little part of you wonder . . .”

Jon isn’t sure what to say. He believes her, he does, but she’s right. If he had been told this before he got to know her, conviction of another man or not, he’d have worried, if even just a little. They’re his _kids._

“I can tell you what happened, if you want,” Sansa offers.

He immediately shakes his head. He knows some things from Robb and Arya, and from herself, and he’s figured out a couple of other things, but - . . . Sansa’s past is hers. She doesn’t have to share if she isn’t ready, and certainly not in response to _this._

“You don’t have to, Sans.”

She drops her hands from her face, her eyes lined with tears. He reaches out for her, slowly, to make sure she doesn’t flinch; and when she doesn’t, he runs his palms down her arms to take her hands in his.

“Hey, hey,” he murmurs, ducking his head to make her meet his eye. “Truly. You don’t have to.”

“No,” she disagrees, biting her lip. “I think it’s time.”

She lets his hands drop, and then slowly sits on the lip of the landing. He takes a seat beside her, letting his clasped hands fall between his thighs. Sansa wrings her hands in her lap, looking away from him and to the road.

“I met Joffrey here, in Winterfell, the day after I graduated high school,” Sansa starts. She goes quiet again, for a long moment, then sighs and continues. Jon hates the story already, but dares not to react. She needs her own space to share whatever she wants to share. “He was here with his family. His father was an old friend of my dad’s, so we caught up with them a few times. Joffrey flirted with me, made me feel special. I had just been declined a position at this really prestigious design college in King’s Landing, and he . . . well. He made me feel better, I suppose.”

Sansa props her chin in her palm, the thumb of her other hand pressing against the tan line on her index finger. He’s noticed her doing that, and knows it’s a nervous habit of hers. He wonders if she would welcome him taking her hand, or if it would distract her. Before he can decide, she goes on.

“We started dating about a month after we’d first met, and even though my whole family, including my dad, warned me that it was a bad idea . . . I fancied myself in love. He was smart, and rich, and confident, and he made me feel like a princess. He had these big plans of joining his father’s law company, of making his way up the ladder quickly, and I knew he would because his father was a name partner. And I wanted that, the glamourous life of a wife of a very successful man. It’s stupid and immature, I know.”

Jon shakes his head, and finally takes her hand. “It isn’t stupid,” Jon says softly. “Society fills young girls’ heads with all sorts of ideas about what they should aspire to. It’s hardly your fault that you thought you were doing what you were supposed to.”

“It’s kind of you to say that,” she replies, squeezing his hand. “But I knew what I was doing. What I _didn’t_ know was that Cersei, Joffrey’s mother, had handpicked me. I suspect now that it was _her_ that had the design college decline my application, because soon after I started dating Joffrey, she offered to visit the board directly and have them reassess my suitability. And I got in, Jon. She got me in.”

Jon feels his heart fall in his chest. He can already see how this ends, and Sansa doesn’t need to say it for Jon to understand how she got so trapped.

“The Baratheon’s offered to have me live with them in King’s Landing, and I threw the biggest tantrum when dad said he wouldn’t let me go.” Sansa wipes her eye with her free hand, then whispers, “ _Gods,_ if there was one thing I could change about my life . . .”

Jon doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to comfort her, so he stays still and quiet beside her. But dear gods he hates how much she blames herself for everything.

“I think eventually mum and dad just decided that I would realise it was a mistake, and then come home,” she admits quietly. “But then I got down there and . . . suddenly everything was different. I knew Joffrey was cheating on me, but I was living in their house, and I was doing so well at the college. I knew that if I broke up with Joffrey, they’d kick me out, and then I would have to move back to Winterfell and I wouldn’t be able to go to the college anymore. It was such a stupid reason to stay, because I know now that mum and dad would have found a way to keep me down there . . . and then Joffrey proposed. I got so panicked, and I knew I didn’t want to spend my life with him, and so I . . .”

He expects her to say that she said _yes,_ that she got so scared and that she didn’t know what to do, and felt pressured and like she had no other choice, but -

“. . . I said no. And he . . . well. Even with everything that had happened until then, I never expected him to hit me like he did.”

Jon feels his lungs constrict. No one has ever told him that Joffrey was physically abusive, but he’s guessed as much himself. But to hear her say it . . .

“I was crying when he left my room, inconsolable, and then Cersei came in – and I’d not even had a chance to get myself together, Jon, I was still in shock and crying and _hurting_ – when she came in and said that if I didn’t accept his proposal, she’d have my position at the college withdrawn.”

Sansa sucks in a harsh breath, tears steadily falling down her face, and Jon can’t stand it any longer. He reaches over to wipe them away with his palm, and then cups her jaw and brings her face to his, pressing their cheeks together so he can kiss her temple.

“You don’t have to keep going,” he murmurs, kissing her again.

“So I accepted his proposal,” Sansa says, as if she hadn’t heard him, her mouth against his cheek. “We married within a year, and my whole family came down. They all tried to dissuade me, of course, but . . . what could I do? Joffrey didn’t hit me again, and I thought that I could learn to live with the cheating and the drinking, as long as he didn’t hurt me anymore . . . the other things didn’t matter so much, not in comparison to the amazing design program.”

Sansa’s breath hitches here, an imperceptible little thing, but Jon’s heart aches. She pulls away from him, though keeps her hand near to his.

“I didn’t speak much to my family from then on. Joffrey _hated_ them. All the Lannisters did. And I so desperately wanted their approval, so I let them talk me into not speaking with them. Things were okay for a while, until I graduated. Cersei got me the job at Louis Vuitton and it was . . . gods, it was amazing, Jon. I loved every second of it. I would spend hours there, both because I loved it but also because I hated being at home. Joffrey noticed, of course, and that’s when it all got unbearable.”

She gulps, and he can hear her breathing quicken. He squeezes her hand, just a little, because he doesn’t want to scare but he doesn’t want her to go without comfort, either. “There was one night, just before mum and dad died . . . As I laid there, wondering if I was going to die, I knew that I had to do whatever I could to get out of there. It suddenly seemed so stupid, to be willing to die for that job. But I was still so scared, and I didn’t know how to go about asking for help, or telling anyone how bad it really it was, and then I got the phone call from Robb.”

Sansa falls apart suddenly and violently.

She is an inconsolable mess in his arms, and Jon doesn’t know how to soothe her, how to help her. He only cries with her, and tries to stop her from hyperventilating, and rubs her back and tells her to let it all out.

When she is done, when all her tears are gone and she doesn’t have the energy to cry anymore, she rests her head on his shoulder and tries to breath around her parched throat.

“After the funeral . . .” Her voice breaks, raspy and dry, and she swallows, her fingers digging into his arm.

“Sansa,” he pleads, voice quiet and drawn. “Please, if you can’t – if you don’t want to –“

“Please don’t interrupt again,” Sansa says, fingers firm around his arm, and Jon shuts his mouth.

He’ll give her anything, _anything._

She picks her story back up, slow and stilted, and Jon sits and listens to what she obviously needs to say.

“Slowly, piece by piece, I took apart my life in King’s Landing. It took almost two years, but finally I had a lawyer organised and ready to file for divorce. I quit my job, seemingly out of the blue, but I knew I had to because if I didn’t Cersei would have gotten me fired and made it much worse than I could handle. So I quit, and handed Joffrey the divorce papers. I had been setting some money aside for a while, in preparation, but I couldn’t have moved without Robb. He came down immediately, set me up in a little apartment which he paid for for months for me. I stayed down there, because I knew that if I didn’t it would be harder to fight Joffrey; not that I wanted anything, of course, but . . . Joffrey is very well known in King’s Landing. I knew it was going to be ugly, and it was. But that was _nothing_ compared to what happened when he died.”

She lets out a moan, low and pained, and Jon’s heart breaks for her all over again.

“All the ugly details were splashed across every paper and magazine in King’s Landing. The police saw that I’d been hiding money, which is why I was arrested. They thought it evidence of premeditation. It wasn’t, of course, but it was all only made worse by the fact that Joffrey had been abusing me for so long. They thought it a case of revenge. But Joffrey was poisoned, slipped into his decanter of whiskey at work, and I’d _never_ been to Joffrey’s office. They released me, turned to other suspects, but it was too late. Everyone already thought I did it. Robb saved me then, too, left Jeyne for almost a month so that he could come to my apartment in King’s Landing and sit with me inside. I was too scared to go outside. Because of the investigation, I wasn’t allowed to leave the state, in case they decided that I had done it or something. And then they arrested Baelish, and suddenly I was free . . . and I moved back here.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. It’s all so much more morbid than he ever could have imagined before today. How does he comfort her? How does he help?

The entire story is just one awful thing after another happening to her, and who is he to think he could make her feel okay right now? He feels like an absolute dick for making her talk about it in the first place, not to mention how absolutely fucking _awful_ he feels for ever doubting her.

Gods. No wonder Arya and Robb never talk about it. No wonder _she_ never talks about it.

He feels honoured, suddenly, that she’d not only shared it, but that she had welcomed him into her life so thoroughly and easily. It can’t have been easy for her, trusting _him,_ not after what’s been done to her.

“Sansa. I’m truly sorry that this happened to you. You didn’t deserve any of this.”

Sansa glances over to him, biting the inside of her lip.

“I really don’t want you to feel guilty about being upset,” she says, and he doesn’t deserve her forgiveness. “I truly do understand, Jon. I wouldn’t have been brave enough to tell you any of this any earlier, but if I had, I think you would have had a lot of reason to just . . .” 

“Someone else was convicted, Sansa. I don’t have any reason to assume _anything.”_

She shrugs. “The police and juries get it wrong all the time.”

“You don’t need to defend my poor judgement to me, Sansa, or to yourself,” Jon says firmly. “You’ve done so much more for me than I ever had any right to ask. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

Sansa eyes him, and he wonders what she’s thinking.

“Okay.”

He doesn’t deserve her. He really fucking doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve how kind she is to his kids, how much time and effort she puts in with them, and he certainly doesn’t deserve her understanding –

“Truly, Sansa. I had no right to raise my voice at you like that –“

“Jon. We’re okay.”

He exhales, dropping his head into his lap. How could she have gone through what she has and not be bitter and resentful? How has she kept and nurtured such a beautiful streak of kindness, when people abandon it over much less; or, worse, never attempt to cultivate it at all.

He wonders whether it’s time to share his own story. It will be of little comfort to her, he knows, because it’s a heavy story, too, if heavy in a different way. But maybe it will make her feel less alone.

“Hey, Sans?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you like to know what happened with Ygritte?”

There’s silence from her as he waits with his face buried in his arms. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t have the strength to hear it today.

And when she whispers a little, “Yes,” he’s almost surprised.

But perhaps it truly will make her feel less alone.

“Ygritte and I were broken up when she found out she was pregnant,” Jon confesses quietly, sitting up again. It’s a secret he’s never told anyone, not even Robb or Arya. “It had only been for a couple weeks, so when she told me she was pregnant I immediately suggested we get back together. She agreed.”

Sansa shifts to stare over at him intently, her eyes bright and blue from her tears. They’re red rimmed and bloodshot, too, and he pauses in his story to reach over to her, to brush his knuckles over her cheek and wipe away the wetness from her face.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” he murmurs, watching his own hand tuck her hair behind her ear.

“I’d like to know,” she confesses. “If you want to tell me.”

It gives him the confidence to keep going.

“We tried to make it work, but she and I weren’t well suited,” he admits, letting his hand drop. “I’d known it, deep down, and she did, too. But she was pregnant. Just after the kids were born, I proposed to her, because that seemed like the right thing to do, and she said yes. We got married within a week, just down at the courthouse. It lasted . . . we were married three months. It wasn’t some terrible, awful thing, not like the first time we separated. I know they say that mutual breakups aren’t really a thing, but . . . it was, for us. We lived together while the kids were babies, because they’re _twins_ and it seemed foolish to try and do it all by ourselves. We got on each other’s nerves a lot, which was good, in a way, because it meant neither of us were ever tempted to give it another go.”

Sansa’s fingers are drawing patterns on his bicep, and he thinks she means it to be comforting, but it’s slightly distracting. It’s such a soothing notion, and all Jon can think is that he wants her to do it forever.

He never had that thought with Ygritte, and it’s easy to admit that to himself now.

“When they turned two, Ygritte and I decided it was time to go our separate ways. She was the one who moved out, because she’d never liked that apartment, but I decided to stay because it seemed much easier than trying to move twins. We worked out an easy custody schedule; a few days on, a few days off. Everything was fine, until she started to ask for more and more time with the kids, and suggested more and more time with the four of us as a family.”

Jon shakes his head, and scoffs at himself, thinking again how _foolish_ he was to deny her.

“I thought that she was trying to take them away completely, or get back together, or something _stupid_ like that. She kept asking, and asking, and I kept demanding why but she wouldn’t tell. Until one day, she showed up at my office, out of the blue, and asked me to go to coffee with her. I agreed, because she had the kids with her. And then she told me she was sick.”

Sansa gasps, softly, her fingers stilling against his arm. His eyes flutter, his throat closing, because he may not have been _in_ love with her, but he loved her all the same, and the whole thing was . . . gods, he doesn’t have the words for it.

He takes a deep breath, and draws strength from Sansa, and the way she had told her story.

“Dying,” he corrects himself softly. “She told me she was dying.”

“Oh, Jon,” Sansa says. Her eyes are so sad when they look at him, so full of worry. He tries to smile at her, to reassure her that he’s okay now, but it wavers on his face and then drops completely.

He scrubs his hands over his mouth and looks at the road, unable to look at her as he continues.

“Breast cancer,” he says quietly. “She was diagnosed as stage three about three months previous, and had denied treatment. The day she told me was the day that her doctor said the cancer had metastasised. Had spread to her lungs and bones. Wouldn’t make it four weeks.”

Sansa’s hand tightens around his arm, frighteningly so.

“She was so scared of dying,” Jon whispers, voice breaking as he remembers her. The way she’d cried in the café that day, clutching Will to her chest. He’d never seen her cry at _all_ before then, let alone in public. “So she decided to start chemo, even though she was stage four. She moved back in with me, because her health was so bad that she couldn’t live alone anymore, but she didn’t want to go to the hospital and wait to die. The chemo was . . . gods, Sansa, it was so fucking brutal. I often wonder whether it was the cancer or chemo that killed her, in the end.”

He spares Sansa the details, because they’re things no one else ever needs to be burdened with. There is a night that torments him the most, one particular night, when Ygritte had started vomiting and not been able to stop. He’d tried to get her to stand, to leave the bathroom so he could get her back to bed with a bucket so she might be comfortable, but he hadn’t even been able to get her to bend her knees she’d been in so much pain, and she’d cried and begged him to make it stop, _please Jon, I can’t anymore, please just make it stop._

He’d called an ambulance, and she was taken to the hospital, and she’d not come home again.

“I never knew my father,” Jon tells Sansa now. “And by the time he died, I had no desire to know him, but for the longest time I _longed_ for him. Not knowing him, who he was or what he liked or even what his favourite colour was . . . Even though mum died when I was a teenager, I still got to spend my childhood with her. I have so many beautiful memories of her, that I’ll get to keep forever. My kids . . . they’ll never remember Ygritte. To know that they’ll feel the way I felt . . .”

“They won’t,” Sansa says vehemently, startling him. “They _won’t._ They may not get to create their own memories of her, but they have _yours,_ Jon. You won’t let them grow up without knowing who she was, I know you won’t.”

It’s a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. Sansa may not know what it’s like to grow up without a parent, but she does know what it’s like to be without them, to know that you’ll never see them again.

“They’ll always miss her,” Sansa tells him quietly, and it’s like Jon’s worst fear has been verbalised. He knows, he’s always known it, and Ygritte had known it, too, and it’s one of the things that the two of them had often cried together about as they’d both tried desperately to comfort each other while weighted down with their own crushing grief. But to hear someone else say it . . . Jon _hates_ it. He hates what Ygritte’s death will do, _has_ done, to his children. He would spare them anything, _everything,_ and to know that this is out of his hands is something Jon isn’t sure he’ll ever truly come to terms with. “But they’ll know her, Jon. They will.”

His arms stacked on top of his knees, he rests his chin on them and stares out at the driveway. A car drives past, and the fallen leaves on the road are blown around then settle back down.

The world keeps turning, and people keep moving, even though he feels like there’s something inside him that will never work the same again. Sansa must feel the same.

He turns his head slightly, cheek resting on his arm, so he can look over to her. She’s mirrored his position, her eyes soft and keen upon his.

“We’re a sorry pair, huh?” she murmurs, her lips lifting into a sad smile.

“At least we have each other, though,” Jon says, before he can think better of it.

The smile that spreads across her face is worth his moment of panic. She slips one of her hands out from underneath her chin, and tangles her fingers with his.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “We do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as I said at the beginning, don't be discouraged from sharing your thoughts - but please be a bit gentle, due to my own experiences with a couple things described in this chapter


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What happened?” Jon questions, ignoring her question and focussing on her lacklustre reply. “You didn’t sleep well?”
> 
> Sansa bites her lip, and Jon gives her a small frown. He turns back inside, away from the door, and leads her into the kitchen, dropping his bag onto the kitchen counter.
> 
> “Do you want some tea?”
> 
> “Don’t you have to get to work?”
> 
> He shrugs, moving over to the kettle. “They can wait,” he replies simply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your kind words on the last chapter. it was an emotional one for all of us. I particularly want to thank those of you who shared your own stories with me, however brief. I feel honoured that you would trust them with me. 
> 
> on that note, I would also like to thank those of you who are still here - to know that you trusted me enough with these characters and this story, despite your uncertainties, is truly incredible. 
> 
> we're back to our fluff (with a fair helping of pining, obviously), which means we're also back to sharing unfiltered thoughts! please, throw them at me. let me know e v e r y t h i n g you're thinking.

Sansa tries not to feel sick, she really does. This is going to be helpful, she knows it isn’t anything to be nervous about. Bran had highly recommended she come, based on his own positive experiences with therapy after his climbing accident.

Her body won’t listen to her mind, though, and her stomach flips when her name is called.

Sansa follows the doctor down the hall, and tries not to tap her foot when she takes her seat opposite her.

“Alright, Sansa,” the woman, Doctor Luwin starts. “What’s prompted you to come in today?”

Sansa taps her fingers on her knees.

“Well, I . . .” She starts, then pauses to clear her throat. “I was hoping for a referral for a psychologist.”

“Okay,” Luwin agrees easily, rolling into her desk to type at her computer. “I’ll get you to fill out a small diagnosis form, but it’s just formality so I can sign you up to a mental health plan. Have you heard of that program?”

Bran had mentioned something about it, when he’d suggested that therapy might be a good idea.

“Yes.”

“So you know that you’ll likely qualify for full rebates on your first ten sessions?” 

“Yes.”

Luwin prints out a form, and passes it to Sansa. “I’ll let you fill that out first before we move on.”

Sansa quietly goes through the list of questions that ask her how anxious she feels on a daily basis, whether her sleep is often interrupted, whether she often feels like her thoughts are characterized with helplessness. Sansa fills them out as truthfully as she can manage, and then silently slides the paper back.

Luwin flicks her eyes down the list, then scribbles something at the end.

“I’ll send this through to Medicare. Do you have any preferences for clinics?”

Sansa shakes her head. She’d looked online, of course, but had come away feeling too overwhelmed to choose.

“That’s alright, I know of a couple really good psychologists that specialize in situations like yours.”

“I’ll leave it to your judgement.”

Luwin gives her a small smile, and turns back to her computer.

“Thanks for getting your previous GP to send through your history,” Luwin says, typing away again. “It’s been really helpful. I can see here that you had an STD check a couple years ago. Would you like another?”

“No, I haven’t had any new partners since then.”

She’d gotten that check when the divorce proceedings started, to make sure she was still clean despite the variety of partners Joffrey had entertained over the years. Her all clear had been an absolute relief, and had lifted at least some of the weight on her shoulders at the time.

“I assume you don’t need a new contraceptive pill script then?”

Sansa’s first instinct is to say no, she doesn’t. She’d started on the pill soon after she’d married Joffrey, without her husband’s knowledge. Cersei and Joffrey had had the desire for her to bear his children; but Sansa hadn’t wanted such a thing, and she’d started on the pill secretly to prevent it.

Once she’d filed for divorce, however, she’d had no need, and had stopped taking it. She’s not needed any protection since then, and hasn’t ever felt the need to change her mind because it’s not like she’s had any prospective partners –

Sansa bites her lip, thoughts flying to the man she hopes she might need it with. It seems a bit presumptuous, to get contraception when Jon is such a far possibility but - . . . Sansa likes to be prepared. And she can always use it with someone else. Or not at all, is the more likely option.

Still. Hope makes her do unpredictable things, apparently.

“Actually, that would be great.”

Luwin doesn’t question it, thank gods. She just nods and continues typing away.

When she’s done, they have another small conversation about which psychologist; and then Sansa leaves, referral and script in hand, feeling very much like she had no reason to be nervous at all.

Sansa calls Bran on her way home, to tell him that she did it, that she’s organized to go to therapy, and he sounds so genuinely proud of her that Sansa almost weeps.

Once she’s home, Sansa calls the clinic and organizes to see them as soon as possible, because she doesn’t want to wait any longer. It ends up falling on a Thursday afternoon, and Sansa at first feels so guilty that she considers moving the session. But when the clinic says they wouldn’t be able to fit her in for almost another two weeks, Sansa decides that she has to do this for herself.

She sends Jon a text, saying that she won’t be able to get the kids on Thursday afternoon, though that the morning will be fine. He responds back quickly, telling her that there’s no problems, that he’ll see her on Thursday morning.

When Sansa arrives at the Snow residence on Thursday morning, Will and Lyra greet her with their usual enthusiasm, and it sets Sansa to ease. She’s been feeling just as nervous for the appointment as she was for the meeting with her new doctor, and it’s nice to see them; it’s reassuring, almost, to be going about her routine.

Jon greets her with a kiss on the cheek, as he’s taken to doing in the couple weeks since their candid discussion about their pasts, and it makes a tingle run down her spine as per usual. She thinks she should have gotten used to it by now, this little show of affection, but she hasn’t.

“Hey, how’d you sleep?” Jon asks, his bag slung over his shoulder.

“Eh,” she shrugs, because truthfully she’d slept very little during the night. Somehow, perhaps irrationally, Sansa has felt very hesitant to be going into the session today because she doesn’t know how she’ll divulge to a stranger what’s happened to her. It had been freeing, in a way, to tell Jon, because she’d been able to let go of the tension and fear that had been sitting in her gut for so long. But she’d hardly told him the details, had not specified exactly what Joffrey had said and done to her, and to go into as deeply as Sansa knows a psychologist will want to is daunting. “What about you?”

“What happened?” Jon questions, ignoring her question and focussing on her lacklustre reply. “You didn’t sleep well?”

Sansa bites her lip, and Jon gives her a small frown. He turns back inside, away from the door, and leads her into the kitchen, dropping his bag onto the kitchen counter.

“Do you want some tea?”

“Don’t you have to get to work?”

He shrugs, moving over to the kettle. “They can wait,” he replies simply.

A small smile tugs at her lips as she takes a seat. “Where are the kids?”

“They’re surprisingly organised this morning,” Jon says, “they’re just packing their bags. Though I’m shocked they haven’t come rushing down to say hello –“

As if summoned, Lyra shouts, “IS SANSA HERE?”

Sansa chuckles as she hears one pair of footsteps, and then another, patter across the floor upstairs; and then Lyra is rushing down the stairs, each time she takes a step down punctuated with a, “Yay, yay, yay, yay!”

“Sansa!” Will greets, as the twins fall against her legs and laugh in delight.

Sansa slips from the chair to give them a joint hug, and Will falls limp against her while sighing with content at the same time Lyra says, “Oh my gosh Sansa, you’re so pretty. Did you do your hair yourself?”

Sansa can’t help but feel touched, even if Lyra is just a kid. Honesty from the mouths of children, and all that.

“I did, do you like it?”

Lyra takes Sansa’s face between her tiny hands and very seriously tells her, “I love it. Would you do my hair?”

Sansa reaches around to tug on the little plait that Lyra has in hers and says, “Your hair is already done. Did dad do that?”

“He did!” Lyra says proudly, spinning around as if to showcase it. She moves too fast, but it’s only a simple plait anyway. “But I like _yours.”_

“Lyra, Sansa and I were talking,” Jon interrupts now. Sansa glances up at him, at the soft smile on his face, and wonders why this moment feels so achingly intimate. “Did you finish packing your bag?”

Lyra sighs loudly. “ _No_ ,” she says glumly. “I’ll go do it.”

She sighs again, then takes Will’s hand and leads him back upstairs.

Sansa sits back on the chair, and by the time she has, Jon has placed a cup of tea in front of her.

“You know what I have?” she asks, surprised.

He looks at her like he doesn’t understand for a moment, but then his face softens. “Of course, Sansa.”

It’s all too much, and still not enough. He makes it sound like the simplest thing in the world, that he’d remember how she takes her tea, but Sansa didn’t know _anyone_ knew.

Sansa takes a sip, just so she has something to do other than flounder in her unsurety.

“You alright?” Jon asks quietly. “You look pretty tired.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” she confesses.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

One of the things Sansa most adores about Jon is that when he asks a question, Sansa knows she can say no. She never feels pressured, like she so often does by others.

“I’m meeting a psychologist today,” Sansa confesses. “That’s why I can’t get them this afternoon.”

“ _Oh,”_ Jon breathes. He reaches across the counter to take her hand, his thumb smoothing across her palm. “That’s really good, Sans. Are you going to make it a regular thing on Thursday’s?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she says, relieved at his easy acceptance. “I don’t think so, I’ll probably try and find a better time.”

“It’s fine if you can’t,” he reassures. “This is more important.”

“Okay,” she agrees, slightly breathless. She’ll try and find another time, she will, because she’s committed to Jon and the kids and she really does love it and get a lot of satisfaction from her few hours with them, but . . . well, it’s nice to know he supports her.

“Why didn’t you sleep well then?” he asks, hand still entwined with hers.

She shrugs a little, avoiding his eyes, because this is suddenly feeling like too much. He’s just so . . . so . . . _nice._

“I’m just nervous,” she admits, biting her lip. “I’ve never been to one before and I don’t know what to expect, and the thought of just – just telling a stranger _everything_ –“

She breaks herself off suddenly, reaching with her spare hand for her cup of tea so she can calm herself down a little, hating that her hand trembles as she does.

Jon stays quiet for a few long moments, just watching her, and when she sets her cup back down he squeezes her hand, just a little.

“I was a mess after Ygritte died,” he says quietly, eyes flicking up the stairs for a moment, and then looking back to her. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t cope very well. We weren’t together, but we spent so many years by each other’s side that she was so solid, and I loved her, in my own way. And it all . . . it all happened so quickly. I hadn’t even known she was sick, and then suddenly she was . . . And I was a mess, Sans. An absolute mess. Robb and Arya came up, because I could hardly take care of the kids let alone myself, and Robb suggested I go see a therapist. I went and saw him for eight months, maybe?”

Sansa rolls her tongue in her mouth, as touched that he’s sharing that with her today as she was when he told her the truth two weeks previous.

“And it helped?” she checks, because she knows _theoretically_ that it will, but she wants it from the mouth of someone other than just Bran. 

“It helped,” he confirms. “And they won’t expect you to just sit and down and confess everything to them today, _especially_ if the idea of that upsets you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” he says firmly. “This is about you, Sansa, and you need to do whatever makes you feel comfortable.”

“Thanks, Jon,” she whispers, and inexplicably feels tears form in her eyes. She tries to laugh it away, to brush them from her eyes before they can fall, but Jon has none of it.

He rounds the counter, hand still holding hers, and uses his other to cup her face.

“Of course, Sans,” he murmurs, lowering his forehead to hers. Sansa eyes flutter closed at the gentle feel of his thumb swiping over her cheek, and her own hand rises of its own accord to fist the shirt over his chest. “Whatever you need.”

Sansa’s breath is caught in her throat, her worries long forgotten as her world narrows down to just the two of them and the intimacy of this moment, and gods Sansa knows she must be gone if he can make her manage to forget everything but her own name with just this tender touch –

Twin pairs of feet patter on the floor above them, and the two of them jump apart abruptly. Jon clears his throat, moving back around to the other side of the counter, while Sansa twists away from him in her chair, trying to get her breathing and the heat in her face under control.

“I should probably head off,” Jon says, clearing his throat again. “I hope it goes okay. And text me if you want to talk about it?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, still dazed and feeling off balance, as Will and Lyra come thundering down the stairs, bags on their back. “Have a good day, Jon.”

“You too, Sans,” he says, giving her a small smile. Gods she loves his smile. 

“Sansa, would you take us to the park before school?” Lyra asks, while Will drops his bag to jump on Jon’s feet, his little hands clenching in the pockets of Jon’s pants.

“What do you say?” Sansa and Jon ask at the same time. She glances over to him, and he’s glanced at her, and gods domesticity has never felt so sweet.

“Please,” Lyra adds, rocking on her feet.

Sansa checks her phone, and it’s still pretty early. She doesn’t really know what she’d do with them otherwise, so she agrees, pulling her bag over her shoulder as she stands.

“I’ll help you get them in the car,” Jon says, picking up Will’s backpack and taking his son by the hand to lead him out.

Sansa locks the front door behind them, then Lyra takes her hand, smiling up at her all the while. Sansa can feel her heart fluttering in her chest, because this is so new and so sweet. She’s desperately telling herself that this all means nothing, that it’s just friendly, what Jon does with Robb and Arya and it shouldn’t feel _different._

But it does feel different.

Jon buckles Will in while Sansa watches Lyra do hers, making sure it’s secure, and then Jon wishes the kids a good day at school and they both close the doors while Sansa fiddles with her car keys. Jon catches her eye over the roof of the car, and Sansa bites her lips, wondering what she could possibly say in this moment that doesn’t give away how _whole_ this has made her feel.

“Good luck this afternoon,” Jon says, rounding her car to stand before her. “And if you don’t want to come tomorrow morning, if you want to sleep in, just text me, alright?”

“Thanks, Jon.” 

He shifts on his feet, swaying slightly towards her, but then he just gives her a parting smile and another well wish for her day and walks back up the driveway and to the garage.

Sansa slides into her car, and then turns to the twins.

“What should we listen to today?” she asks them both, wiggling her phone around.

“Toy Story 4!” Will says, while Lyra requests, “The Little Mermaid!”

“Hm, I think we listened to what you wanted last week Lyra,” Sansa says, unlocking her phone to search for some Toy Story.

“Fine, but it’s The Little Mermaid tomorrow.”

“Not if you’re making demands of me like that, it’s not,” Sansa replies sternly.

“Can we listen to The Little Mermaid tomorrow please Sansa?”

Sansa gives Lyra a little smile over her shoulder and nods.

“Tomorrow, darling,” Sansa promises, then turns back to the front, feeling a much less sick. 

When Sansa gets home that evening, Bran and Rickon are just arriving there, too.

“You sure you don’t want to stay for dinner, too?” Sansa asks Rickon, as the youngest of her siblings wheels Bran up the path to the front door.

“Nah, I’ve got an early start tomorrow, I’m just gonna go home and sleep.”

“What are you going to have for dinner?” Sansa presses, because it seems silly that he would go home and make himself food just to go sleep early when she and Bran aren’t going to have a late night, either.

“Some take out, maybe,” Rickon says, shrugging.

“Don’t listen to him San,” Bran interjects. “His fuck buddy is coming ‘round.”

Sansa blinks in surprise at the abrupt turn in conversation, the key in the lock stopping its rotation as she pauses. Rickon sighs loudly, an irritated thing that lets Sansa know they’ve had this conversation before.

“Gods, Bran, you don’t have to call him that,” Rickon mutters.

“Well maybe if you told me his _name_ I wouldn’t have to,” Bran argues.

Sansa unlocks the door, narrowing her eyes as Rickon says quietly, “If I tell you his name it would be a _thing,_ and he’s not interested in a _thing.”_

“Well why not?” Sansa demands, following them down the hall.

“Look, he made it clear at the beginning that he just wanted casual. I’m the one who caught feelings. Can we drop this, please?”

Sansa doesn’t particularly want to drop it, she’d rather pry and find out about this mystery man; but she thinks suddenly of Jon, and how shitty she’s felt being the one to harbour unreciprocated feelings and knows that prying isn’t going to help.

“Make sure you eat something healthy,” Sansa says, feeling all too much like her mother, but unwilling to stop worrying about him. “Don’t just get take out.”

Rickon rolls his eyes and gives her a parting nudge on the shoulder. “You think I got this built from eating fried food? Nah, sis, these muscles are all boiled protein.”

“Okay, well, I know that’s not true because of the junk food you steal when you come here.”

“You should stop eating that,” Rickon rebuts cheekily, giving her wink as he walks back down the hall. “In the wise words of my sister, it’s not healthy.”

“Make good choices!” Bran shouts down the hall after Rickon.

Rickon mutters darkly under his breath, but disappears out the door without another word.

“I was thinking risotto for dinner, but it’ll take a while,” Sansa says Bran once the door is closed. “That sound okay?”

“Yeah, San, that sounds great,” Bran agrees. “How’d it go today?”

Sansa gets the arborio out of the pantry and sets to frying it up while chopping onions.

“It went well, actually,” she says finally. “It wasn’t as intense as I was scared it would be. She mostly just asked questions about my history with mental health, why I came in today and such. Gave me some ideas on things that I can immediately start to change and fix.”

“Like what?” Bran asks.

Sansa shrugs, avoiding his eye as she chops.

“I don’t know, just things like that I shouldn’t agree to things I don’t want to do just because I feel like I have to. Or try and start doing something again that makes me happy.”

“And do you know what that is?”

Sansa’s phones rings abruptly from its place on the counter, and she leans over to see it’s Arya.

Sansa accepts the call and puts it on speaker, leaving it on the while she continues cutting.

“Hey Arya, Bran’s here.”

“Oh hey Bran,” Arya greets. “I won’t interrupt for too long, I was just calling to ask a favour?”

“Sure,” Sansa agrees. She see’s Bran frown at her, and Sansa frowns back, unsure what he’s getting at.

“It’s a bit of an inconvenience to be honest, but I was wondering if you might be able to come work at the gym tomorrow? Gendry’s sick and I’ve got meetings lined up all day.”

Oh. She supposes she could. She was going to work on the downstairs bathroom tomorrow, and of course she’s got the kids in the morning and afternoon, but she supposes she could shift her day around even though she doesn’t really want to. And a day at the gym on reception sounds pretty terrible, but Arya wouldn’t be calling if she didn’t need help –

Bran has raised his brow at her, and suddenly Sansa realises what he’s getting at.

But surely the therapist didn’t mean things like this. She meant big things, things that make Sansa uncomfortable and makes her change her schedule when she doesn’t want to - . . . Oh. _Oh._

“I actually –“ Sansa clears her throat, pausing her chopping. Why is it so hard to turn her down? Why does she feel so guilty? “I actually can’t tomorrow.”

Sansa waits for Arya to ask why not, what she’s doing that’s more important, and Sansa’s guilt skyrockets as she thinks that she really _could_ just move things around. It’s not even that big a deal, really.

“That’s fine, I’ll find someone. ‘Bout time we hired some help, huh? Honestly, I can’t believe how well this gym is going. Talking about hiring a receptionist? I would never have imagined this time last year that we’d be talking about hiring staff outside of the trainers.”

Sansa’s guilt has washed away completely, replaced with relief; both that she doesn’t have to go to the gym tomorrow, and that Arya didn’t even _care._

Maybe therapy really is going to help.

“You should hire Rickon, he’s pretty buff,” Bran says, filling the silence that Sansa has left in her moment of realisation.

Arya laughs. “Yeah, and pry him away from the electricians? You know he loves that job. Hey, also, San, has Jon asked you about Saturday night yet?”

Sansa throat suddenly feels dry for a whole other reason. “Uh, nope,” Sansa replies, going back to chopping in an effort to adopt a cool air of nonchalance. “Why, what’s on Saturday? Does he need me to babysit?”

“No, he wants to take you, me and Robb out for dinner as a thank you for helping out this year.”

“He doesn’t have to do that,” Sansa says, a little surprised. It’s not that she thinks it odd that he would want to show his appreciation, because she knows that he’s that type of person; it’s just that she doesn’t really need the confirmation that he does.

“I’m sure he’ll ask you about it tomorrow anyway,” Arya says. “I’ll leave you guys to it, have a good night. Don’t get too rowdy.”

“Yes, because Sansa and I are the type to get rowdy,” Bran says wryly.

“Then get a bit a loose,” she advises. “Alright, talk later.”

Arya hangs up, leaving Bran and Sansa to their silence.

“So,” Bran says finally. “You and Jon?”

Sansa inhales so sharply that she chokes and starts to cough, which is not at all helped by the raw onions she’s cutting.

Bran gets her a glass of water, holding it out in concern, and Sansa takes it gratefully, trying to figure where Bran got _that_ from but also a way to change the conversation entirely.

“I don’t know if that’s a yes or a no,” Bran says finally, once she’s stopped coughing.

Sansa turns her back to him under the guise of putting the onions in the pan, but mostly it’s because she knows he can read her expression too well. That must be how he’s even figured out there’s something to comment _on._

“It’s a no,” she mutters, half hoping he doesn’t hear her.

“But you want it to be a yes?”

Sansa chews on her lip, hesitant to speak it out into the universe but also so sick of bottling it all up.

“Maybe we can about this another time,” Sansa decides finally. She’s had too big a day on top of too little sleep. She couldn’t really handle a candid conversation about her feelings for Jon. 

“Another time,” he agrees, much more amenable and understanding than Robb or Arya would likely be, the stubborn bastards. “So anyway, I think I’ve got Rickon’s booty call slash future boyfriend narrowed down to two guys. Wanna stalk them on Facebook with me?”

Sansa laughs, shaking her head at him fondly. If that’s any indication, he’s definitely not going to let the Jon thing go; as long as he lets her bring it up in her own time, Sansa thinks she’s okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I did genderbend Luwin and make Rickon gay, and no I will not be taking suggestions on these points 
> 
> my Tumblr is [ladyalice101](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ladyalice101), where I'm more than happy to answer questions or talk the story or anything, really.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her not-so-chivalrous, much-too-sexual-for-a-friend thoughts have been tempered, recently, making way for something much more tender and gentle, intense in a different way. They come back with a vengeance now, as she takes in the grey of his slacks that she knows are tight across his arse, the white of his button-up showing off a frankly ridiculous amount of definition, the curls of his hair are practically taunting her to tug on them, and she has an idea or two of what she wants him to do with those full lips of his.
> 
> And the fact that he’s pulling on the end of his scarf, a sweet smile on his face?
> 
> Yeah, she’s gonna struggle to get through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asdfghjkl we're really getting into it now

_Someone else was convicted,_ Sansa reminds herself as she flicks through the clothes in her closet, trying to find something appropriate for the evening. 

Jon had chosen somewhere a bit more private for them all, on Sansa’s quiet request, but it’s still one of the nicest restaurants in town. She’s still trying to figure out the line between what she likes and what’s just too much, and in King’s Landing a night out at the one of the nicest restaurants means ball gowns and diamonds.

It means something entirely different here, but Sansa is still looking forward to an opportunity to dress up a bit and get out of the house. It’s just that now she’s here, standing in front of her closest, she doesn’t really know what to pick. And she calls herself a designer.

She spends several more minutes on the decision, but when she gets a text from Jon saying he’s leaving his house now to get her, she realises she just needs to hurry up. And if she’s a little over-dressed, why should it matter?

 _Someone else was convicted,_ she says again.

When the doorbell rings, she’s pulled herself together remarkably quickly; once she’d picked out a long, grey woollen dress, everything else had come together with the ease that she’s used to.

She’s wrapping a thick white scarf around her neck when she pulls open the door to Jon, who is looking as handsome as always.

Her not-so-chivalrous, much-too-sexual-for-a-friend thoughts have been tempered, recently, making way for something much more tender and gentle, intense in a different way. They come back with a vengeance now, as she takes in the grey of his slacks that she _knows_ are tight across his arse, the white of his button-up showing off a frankly ridiculous amount of definition, the curls of his hair are practically _taunting_ her to tug on them, and she has an idea or two of what she wants him to do with those full lips of his.

And the fact that he’s pulling on the end of his scarf, a sweet smile on his face?

Yeah, she’s gonna struggle to get through the night.

“Hey, Sans,” he greets, stepping forward to give her a hug and the normal kiss on the cheek. Her stomach flips, the traitor. Fuck, she’s in trouble.

“Thanks for driving me,” she says, picking up her coat from the rack and slipping it on then pulling her hair from the neck of it.

“It’s no problem,” he says, taking her hand as she steps out the door. Her boots aren’t particularly high, but she’ll take the excuse, truthfully. Sansa pulls the door closed behind her, and Jon takes her hand again to walk down the stairs of the landing. He seems to take no notice of the fact he’s doing it, and Sansa knows from experience that that’s better than the expectant smile that usually comes along with such an action.

“You really didn’t have to do this,” Sansa says as they slide into his Range Rover. “I do love those kids.”

Sansa means it, too. She’d so readily agreed to helping him in the beginning because it was such an easy way to do something _other_ than be locked up, by herself, all the time. But it’s become so much more than that, and Sansa adores those children, and actively looks forward to the time she spends with them.

She adores Jon, too.

“I think it’s the least I can do,” Jon disagrees quietly, slowly pulling away from the curb.

“Who’s looking after them tonight?”

“My friends Sam and Gilly. They’ve got a son the twins’ age, so I took Will and Lyra to theirs and I’ll get them on the way home.”

The rest of the drive is filled with comfortable talk about their days, and with Sansa asking a few technical questions about her house.

When they arrive, Robb and Arya are standing out the front of the restaurant waiting for them. Sansa is fairly sure she’s never seen Arya wearing a dress, and that streak isn’t ruined now. Instead she’s donned in a high waisted pair of slacks and a shirt, with Robb much the same.

“No Gendry or Jeyne?” Sansa asks Jon as they approach.

He shrugs. “I invited them, but neither of them agreed to come.”

Robb and Arya greet them warmly, and then Jon goes to the front to seek out the table he’d reserved, while the three Starks linger out the front and wait.

“You came with Jon?” Arya asks, fairly nonchalantly. Sansa shifts on her feet and hides the action by tightening her coat around her, hoping Arya doesn’t pick up on any sense of unease.

“Uh, yeah, I was on his way.”

Robb rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Arya roped me into being her designated driver, too,” he says, nudging her with his arm and giving Sansa an exasperated smile.

Arya looks at Sansa with appraising eyes, and Sansa tries not to shift around, she does, but then Jon comes back and Sansa’s relieved she’s not on the receiving end of Arya’s perception any longer.

They’re led to their seats by a waitress, and Jon orders them all a bottle of wine as they settle into the seats.

“I’m glad you all came,” Jon says, giving them all one of his adorable smiles. “I really appreciate how much you’ve helped me since we moved. I truly couldn’t have done it without you all, you have no idea how much of a help you’ve been. To both me and the kids.”

“It was our pleasure,” Sansa replies, giving him a big smile.

“Yeah, I love those nuggets,” Arya says, raising her glass.

“We’re happy to help,” Robb adds, clinking his glass against all of theirs.

“Well, thank you anyway,” Jon responds with another small smile. “It would have been impossible without you.”

The night passes fairly uneventfully, if in easy comradery, and Sansa feels genuinely content and peaceful as the night wears on. She thinks that she’ll be more than happy in this new life if she gets to keep enjoying nights such as these.

It’s Robb, of course, who opens his big mouth and ruins it.

“Hey, so, there’s this girl at work, Jon –“

Jon sighs loudly and takes a big drink from his wine glass. “Another girl, Robb? Really?”

“What?” Robb says, only slightly defensive. “I know it didn’t work out with Val, but you said the night was _fine._ This other woman is –“

“Excuse me,” Sansa murmurs, standing from her seat quietly as Robb keeps talking. She doesn’t particularly want to sit here and listen to this, and she has to go to the toilet anyway. By the time she gets back, she’s sure the conversation will have moved on and she won’t have to hear about this woman who’s probably very pretty and likes to exercise, because Jon seems the type to like outdoorsy women, and she also probably hasn’t been arrested for murder and has an actual job.

Jon glances at her as she stands, a worried pout to his brows, so she says, “Just going to the bathroom,” and leaves them to it.

In the stall, Sansa a few deep, calming breaths, like her therapist told to do if she can feel herself getting to stressed or panicked, or even if she just needs to remind herself that everything is okay.

And it’s not that she feels stressed or panicked right now. She’s not on the verge of a panic attack. Everything _is_ okay. That conversation is hardly the end of the world; Jon can date whomever he wants.

There’s hardly anything to stress about, even if Sansa doesn’t particularly want to listen to them talk about it. No, she isn’t stressed, that’s the wrong word. She’s . . . well, honestly, it feels like she’s heartbroken. Not over this particular conversation, just this general situation with Jon. If anything, Sansa has only been reassured over the past weeks that nothing can happen between them.

He obviously went through a really hard time with Ygritte, and Sansa just can’t see how he could be ready for another relationship. Especially considering that he doesn’t exactly seem excited about the prospect of going on dates. And, well, Sansa doesn’t know the machinations of being a single parent, but if it were _her,_ she’d be pretty hesitant to start anything serious with a man for fear that it would create some emotional instability for her kids.

It’s just . . . the whole thing is just really shitty, is all.

The door to the bathroom opens, and then Arya says, “So, you’ve got a thing for Jon, huh?”

Sansa scowls at the door of her stall, even though Arya can’t see her, and crosses her arms in petulance. “Fuck off,” she mutters.

Arya goes quiet for a long moment. “It’s serious, then?”

Sansa doesn’t answer, just finishes up and hopes that the flush of the toilet discourages Arya from further questioning.

“Well?” Arya asks as Sansa opens the door, standing before her with expectant lift to her brows.

“Fuck off,” Sansa repeats, brushing past Arya to wash her hands.

“I’m not teasing,” Arya says, sounding genuinely honest. “I’m just surprised, is all. I didn’t really think you’d be into the idea of dating. Or of Jon, honestly.”

“Yes, because posh Sansa can only like rich assholes, right?”

Sansa hates when she gets defensive. She gets snippy, and she doesn’t like being a snippy person. She likes gentle, honest conversations, not ones filled with barbed, hurtful words.

Arya sighs. “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Arya says plainly, leaning on the sink to stare up at Sansa.

Sansa avoids her eye, digging in her bag for her lipstick so she doesn’t fall into Arya’s searching gaze.

“I don’t know, I suppose I just thought you weren’t ready.”

“Ready for what?” Sansa snaps, and knows instantly that she’s kept this bottled up for too long. Gods, she should have taken the opportunity to talk to Bran about it when she had the chance. “Some hopeless pining after a man who doesn’t feel the same? Yeah, it’s really what I came back to Winterfell for.”

Arya’s brows have shot up, likely both at Sansa’s tone and what she’s said. “Doesn’t feel the same?” Arya questions, head titled. “I don’t know, he’s pretty vehemently declining other dates right now.”

Sansa rolls her eyes. “Yes, because having two five year old kids is really the right environment to always be going on dates in. Can we just drop this please? Let’s get back.”

Arya doesn’t say anything more, likely because Sansa is already opening the door to the bathroom.

They approach their table from behind Jon, and as they get close she hears Jon say, “Look, while we’re on the subject, please don’t tell my kids that I’m going on dates, okay?”

Sansa blinks in surprise, unsure what he means. Has he agreed to the date? But wait, why would Robb tell Jon’s kids?

Jon gives her a small smile as Sansa slides back into her seat.

She can’t leave again now, she’ll just have to listen to the end of whatever this is, so she refills her wine glass as Robb replies.

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that one,” Robb responds, wincing. “I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t realise you were keeping it a secret.”

“It’s not a secret, Robb, I just didn’t think I should tell them before going on a _first_ date.”

“Sorry,” Robb says, but he doesn’t look particularly phased. Sansa is fairly sure they’re talking about Jon’s date with Val. Did Robb tell the twins that Jon was going on a date? That seems . . . fairly insensitive, honestly. “Guess I should learn how to keep my big mouth shut.”

Jon tenses beside her, and she has no idea why, not until he takes a gulp from his wine and mutters around the rim, “And maybe learn when to _open_ it, as well.”

The table falls into silence as Jon sighs and puts his glass down, frowning at the table.

“Wait, you’re really upset about this,” Robb says, sounding a little surprised as he glances at she and Arya. Sansa isn’t going to bail him out. It’s not her place to interfere between the two of them, and, more than that, she kind of agrees with Jon. Robb shouldn’t have told the twins anything, and she’s got her own lingering upsets about Robb not mentioning certain things when he should have.

Wait, is that what Jon meant? Is he upset that he didn’t know about her, too?

“Let’s just forget it,” Jon mutters. “I shouldn’t have brought it up here.”

“No, what did you mean?” Robb presses. “The girls don’t mind, we don’t have to keep secrets.”

Sansa glares at the table, taking another big drink from her glass. Don’t have to keep secrets, eh, Robb?

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Arya says, leaning back in her chair and taking her own big gulp. 

“What are you upset about?” Robb asks, a confused furrow between his brows as he stares at Jon. “I know I shouldn’t have told Lyra, it genuinely was an accident –“

“We’ll talk about it another time, can we just –“

“You brought it up,” Robb argues. “Just –“

“Why didn’t you tell me about Sansa?” Jon interrupts, and Sansa’s breath hitches in her throat as her eyes widen at him. “I think it’s rather disrespectful, actually, that you didn’t.”

Sansa’s mouth parts in surprise. She hadn’t realised he felt so strongly about it. She’s so used to having no one on her side that it seems odd, now, that Jon _is._ And, truthfully, she’s let this particular thing go – well, mostly. It’s . . . it’s an odd feeling, to have someone be upset about something that pertains to her.

Or, well, it pertains to him, too. He probably thinks that it’s disrespectful because he and Robb have been friends for so long. It does seem weird to Sansa, too, that in almost a decade neither Robb nor Arya had let their sister’s name slip from their lips even in a casual manner.

“I –“

Robb glances over to Sansa, then to Arya, and back to Jon.

Sansa considers saying something, coming to Robb’s defence – for some blind, silly reason, likely because this is getting a bit uncomfortable and she hates when that happens – but just as she goes to, Sansa decides that she’d actually really rather like to hear what Robb says to Jon about this. She’s already heard his confession to her, of course, but . . . well, she’d like to hear it again. Maybe it will help her let the rest of her upset go.

“I don’t know,” Robb says finally. “I just . . . I guess I just . . . It wasn’t purposeful. I’m sorry.”

Robb doesn’t say anything more, and instead the table descends into a tense silence. Jon doesn’t reply, and Sansa doesn’t rush to Robb’s aid, and the tension persists.

Under the table, Jon’s hand finds Sansa’s knee. He squeezes it gently, and Sansa is pretty sure she doesn’t jump in surprise.

“We’ll talk about it another time,” Jon says finally. He goes to pull his hand from her knee, but before he does she covers his hand with her own, just a brush of her fingers over the back of his hand until they’re caught in his palm. “I shouldn’t have brought it up here.”

Despite the fact that Robb agrees quietly, the awkward air doesn’t lift, and it doesn’t take long for Jon to sigh and ask for the check.

“I don’t know about you guys, but my dinner was fantastic,” Arya says as they all stand. “Getting seafood so far inland is always a risk, but I reckon it paid off.”

“You had the marinara, right?” Sansa asks, taking the opportunity to lift the silence as Arya offers it.

“Yep, and those shrimps were phenomenal,” Arya says, hooking her arm through Sansa’s as they walk out. “How was the gnocchi? I wanted to get that, it looked good.”

Jon and Robb don’t fall for their trick, instead quietly getting their coats. Robb hands Arya’s hers, while Jon helps Sansa into her own.

“Yeah, it was nice,” Sansa replies, pulling her hair out again. “Nice and light, which is unusual.”

“I don’t think our plot is working, San,” Arya says good naturedly as they all walk outside. “I think those two are going to brood in silence for the rest of the night.”

“No, I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Jon says suddenly, as if he’d been part of the conversation all along. “We better get going though, it’s getting late.” 

Sansa glances at her phone and realises it _is_ getting late. Much later than she’d anticipated they’d be, considering Jon has to go get the kids.

“Thanks again for dinner,” Arya says, giving Jon an easy hug.

Robb has a rather tragic look in his eye when he hugs Sansa, and she sighs quietly into his shoulder.

“We’re fine,” Sansa murmurs to him, patting his back. “I promise.”

“I am sorry,” he replies back, giving her a gentle squeeze and letting her go.

“Yeah, I know.”

Robb and Jon shake hands, while Arya rolls her eyes at Sansa, and then they part ways, Robb and Arya to his Merc while Sansa walks beside Jon to his Range Rover.

When they slide into his car, Jon doesn’t turn the engine on immediately, just the heating and lights, instead sitting and staring out at the parking lot.

Sansa waits for him patiently, unsure what he’s thinking.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I shouldn’t have said anything, it ruined the night. He just . . . he wouldn’t let the date thing drop, even though I told him to, so I was already frustrated with him when . . .”

Sansa purses her lips. “I suppose I’m just not sure why you care so much,” Sansa admits quietly.

Jon sighs, leaning back in his seat and running his hands through the hair that he’d tamed for the evening. It messes his curls up, and if Sansa thought they were tempting before, now they’re positively delectable.

“I’ve known him almost ten years and I didn’t know about you,” Jon says. “I just think that that’s wrong.”

“It’s kind of a big thing not to know,” Sansa admits, rubbing her fingers on her palm. “But I don’t think he meant to lie to you –“

“I’m not upset that he lied, Sansa,” Jon interrupts gently, looking at her with furrowed brows. “I’m upset because all you did was move out when you thought you were in love and I don’t understand how that means _you’re_ the one who’s punished. I just don’t – how could they not know? How could they just stay up here and –“

He groans, breaking himself off as his head falls forward against the wheel. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I don’t mean to make it about me.”

“I don’t think you’re making it about you,” Sansa says, playing with the ring on her finger. It had been a gift from her family on her eighteenth birthday, before everything went to shit. She’s always loved it, but Joffrey never liked her wearing it. She’d put it on tonight for the first time in years. “I’m just a little surprised you’re so defensive. Robb and Arya have already apologised to me about it, if that makes you feel better.”

Jon turns his head to look at her, his eyes much too keen as they appraise her.

“I don’t know how you can be so forgiving,” Jon says.

Sansa shrugs as she looks away from his searching gaze. “I was never Robb’s responsibility. It was mum and dad’s job to make sure I was okay, not his. Robb made up for it, which is more than I can say for mum and dad. But Robb came when I asked, just came down to King’s Landing to help me for _months,_ and that _matters,_ Jon. It does. Enough that I can forgive whatever reason he had for not telling you about me.”

“And that he didn’t come to help earlier?”

“As I said,” Sansa replies, turning back to him, “I think that falls more as mum and dad’s responsibility than his.”

Jon lifts his head and reaches out for her hand. She takes it easily, always eager to feel her hand encompassed in his. Despite the fact that they’re the same height, Jon’s hand is bigger than hers, and she always feels so safe when she’s holding it.

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,” Jon says, rather decidedly for an opinion Sansa isn’t sure he can possibly have. “I’m glad I met you, Sansa.”

Around the lump in her throat, Sansa murmurs, “I’m glad I met you, too.”

The intensity of his gaze proves too much for Sansa, too intimate for such a small space. And she’s had one glass of wine too many and she’s far too likely to say something she really shouldn’t, so she breaks their eye contact and instead looks at the clock.

“What time did you say you’d pick up the kids?”

From the corner of her eye, she sees Jon frown, but then he sighs and looks to the clock, too.

“Ten,” he replies. It’s already quarter past.

“We can go straight there if you want,” Sansa offers. “I don’t mind, you can just drop me home after?”

“Are you sure?” Jon asks. “I can just text Sam, I’m sure they won’t mind.” 

“No, let’s go get them. I only saw them twice this week, I haven’t met my cuteness quota yet.”

Jon chuckles, finally turning the car on. “They are pretty cute,” he agrees.

“You’re their father, you have to say that,” Sansa teases.

“Nah,” he disagrees quietly, “I _get_ to say that.”

Sansa’s heart flutters and burns in her chest.

When they reach Sam and Gilly’s, Sansa feels much too like she wants to spend all of her nights like this. Being with Arya and Robb was nice, but just being with Jon is _magical._ Sansa didn’t think she’d ever describe something or someone in her life as magical again, hasn’t thought so for years, so to do so now feels a little like her world is changing.

Sansa follows Jon up the stairs to the Tarly’s front door, and only stares at his arse a little – she was right, these pants do pull across it _beautifully_ – then waits beside him after he knocks. 

Sam doesn’t even greet Jon, his eyes just falling on her. “Oh, you must be Sansa,” Sam says, smiling widely at her and extending his hand. “I’m Sam.”

“It’s nice to meet you Sam,” Sansa says, smiling back at him. She likes him already.

“Come on in,” Sam grins, widening the door. “They’ve been asleep for hours, so I reckon you won’t wake them.”

“Thanks so much, Sam,” Jon says. “Is Gilly still awake? Sorry we’re late by the way, time just slipped away.”

“It’s no problems.” Sam waves them away, then leads them into the kitchen. “She’s just fixing a cup of tea, do either of you want one?”

“No, we should probably head off,” Jon declines. “It’s about bedtime, I think.”

“Yeah, the wine is kind of hitting me hard now,” Sansa agrees. She honestly feels like she could fall asleep standing. She’d not been so tired a few minutes ago, but now she wants nothing more than to snuggle into bed.

Preferably with Jon by her side to spoon her, but she supposes she’ll just have to take the comfort of her blankets tonight.

And maybe her vibrator, if she stay can awake long enough.

“We put them in our bed, I’ll show you down.”

Sansa follows the two men down the hall, smiling gently at all the family photos along the wall. These three are adorable, all their smiles so wide and loving.

“I’ll get Lyra,” Sansa offers quietly when they enter the master room.

Jon smiles at her gratefully, then reaches down to scoop Will into his arms. Will doesn’t even pause in his snoring, head lolled against Jon’s shoulder and all his limbs dangling loosely around Jon’s torso.

Lyra, however, stirs slightly as Sansa picks her up and rests her over her chest.

“Daddy?” Lyra mumbles, yawning widely.

“It’s Sansa, baby,” Sansa whispers, running her hand over Lyra’s head and rocking her slightly in an attempt to lull her back to sleep.

“Hi, Sansa,” Lyra says sleepily, yawning again and rubbing her eye. She’s so fucking _adorable,_ gods. Sansa’s heart can’t take it. “Your hair is out. It’s so pretty.”

Sansa chuckles, following Jon out the bedroom door. “Go back to sleep, pumpkin.”

Lyra is snoring against her neck before they’ve even met Gilly at the kitchen.

Gilly looks surprised to see her, her brows lifting slightly before she puts her tea on the counter and comes over.

“I’m Gilly,” she greets. “Sansa?”

“Yeah,” Sansa murmurs, keeping as quiet as she can for Lyra. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Gilly says. “Jon’s told us a lot about you.”

It’s Sansa’s turn to be surprised as she glances over at him having his own quiet conversation with Sam, not listening to the two of them.

“As soon as you made a good impression with the kids he couldn’t stop,” Gilly admits. “Been a little obsessed, really.”

“It’s hard to find people that understand,” Sansa says awkwardly, rocking Lyra both to keep her asleep and as a way to distract herself.

“Maybe,” Gilly says amiably. She looks over to Jon, then back to Sansa, back to Jon and finally resting her eyes on Sansa again, an all too knowing look on her face. Gods, Sansa’s kept this secret for months now. Why is this week apparently the week of people figuring out her hopeless pining? “Sam isn’t Little Sam’s father, you know. His biological father was a pretty terrible man. Finding Sam was the best thing that ever happened to me, and to my son. When you find someone who fits into your little family, you don’t want to let them go.”

Sansa gawks at Gilly, so surprised she stops moving. Lyra fidgets against her chest, and Sansa restarts the gentle motion, rubbing Lyra’s back while she tries to think of something to say. What Gilly’s said is vaguely encouraging, in a weird way, enough to make a little hope bloom in Sansa’s stomach; but it’s not explicit enough to that Sansa knows for sure what Gilly is getting at.

“You’re rather forward, you know that?” Sansa says finally.

“No reason not to be,” Gilly replies cheerfully, a smile spreading across her face. “Life’s too short.”

“Yeah,” Sans agrees quietly, eyes flicking to the ceiling as she thinks of all the time she’s wasted in her own short life and how many things she regrets doing – or not doing. But she won’t go confessing to Jon and potentially ruining everything over some vague words, no matter how encouraging. She just can’t. “Has he said something to you?”

Gods, she feels like a teenager again. She can’t believe she’s asking if a boy has admitted he _likes_ her. What a fucking high school move. But she really can’t risk talking to him about this if he’s going to shoot her down immediately. Her heart really couldn’t take it. _She_ really couldn’t take it.

“No,” Gilly admits. “But he doesn’t have to. I’ve Jon a long while, and I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Like what?”

Gilly shrugs, gaze drifting back over to Jon, a little smile on her face. “So happy.”

The drive back to her house is quiet and comfortable, but Sansa’s mind is admittedly elsewhere. She can’t stop thinking about what Gilly said.

There are so many reasons Jon has for being so happy. He’s probably just relieved that his choice to move to Winterfell is going so well; that the school is so supportive, that he’s got a nice routine with the kids, that his business is running smoothly. And leaving Castle Black means leaving behind a lot of the reminders of Ygritte, which has got to be relieving in some capacity too.

There are so many reasons for him to be happy here, and Sansa probably isn’t it.

When they pull up outside her house, Jon leaves the car running but gets out to walk her to the landing.

“You really don’t know the help you’ve been, Sans,” Jon says as they walk. “I can’t believe how easily Will has welcomed you. It’s been so beautiful to watch. And Lyra looks up to you so much, you’re basically her idol. It means the world to me, Sans, and makes me so fucking happy.” 

“Are you?” Sansa asks, pausing her step abruptly and taking his arm to tug him to a stop, too. She’s already heard that word from Gilly tonight, and it’s seems like too much of a coincidence to let it pass now he’s said it, too. “Happy?”

“Aye,” he breathes, standing closer to her than she thought he was. His hair ruffles with the breeze, the wind tugging on her own loose hair, and suddenly there is _something_ here that speaks to love. “I am. Are you?”

A smile tugs on her lips as she looks at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“You deserve to be. I’m glad you’ve found it here.”

Sansa bites her lip. There’s just something so unbearably soft and yet so charged between the right now. If Sansa were braver, she’d kiss him. If he kissed her, she’d more than let him, she’d _welcome_ it. Gods, she wishes he would. Wishes she were braver, wishes she could trust the instincts that are telling her that she should, that he wants this, too.

But she doesn’t trust them. They’ve led her wrong too many times in the past.

And Jon isn’t moving any closer to her at all, just staying exactly where he is.

Sansa is at an impasse, one that she’s unwillingly to change just based on the merit of her own desires and something a stranger had said to her. She needs more than that to do something, as silly as it sounds.

“I better head off,” Jon says finally, his eyes unreadable. “Sleep well, Sans. And thank you.”

“Thank _you,”_ Sansa murmurs. “You sleep well, too.”

Jon hesitates for a moment longer, but ultimately turns away from her. Sansa makes her way up the stairs to her landing, her hand trembling slightly as she undoes the lock. She waves to Jon as she enters her house, then slips inside, letting out a big breath.

She’s definitely awake now, and much too confused and charged to go to sleep.

Vibrator it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...... idk why I'm doing this to us all


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite the fact that he’s never let them all put up decorations before the first, with the snow and the decorations being slowly added on the streets, it suddenly feels like Christmas is only around the corner; and very abruptly he has Will and Lyra hanging off his arm and begging to put the Christmas tree up.
> 
> “It’s the first of December, remember?” he reminds them. “That’s not until Sunday.”
> 
> “Fine,” Lyra says, kicking her shoe against the ground and crossing her arms, but Will starts to dance around the living room singing you better not shout, you better not cry! over and over again. “But, remember, if I explode into little pieces from pent up excitement because I have nowhere to channel it, it’s your fault.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor warnings for this chapter, bc some of ya'll expressed some familiarity with cancer: Lyra and Jon discuss Ygritte. no details of the illness, but it's a touch sad. 
> 
> oh and also: 

With winter only a week away, Jon knows to be prepared for a busier time. Work has started to get frantic, because all their sites have to start getting prepared for snow, and the kids get a little crazy, too, because shops start to put up Christmas decorations despite it still being too early.

During the last week of November, the first snow of the season falls. It paints Winterfell in a beautiful, stark white, but Jon knows it isn’t going to stick, not yet.

December is only a few days away, and Christmas decorations are going up in the streets.

Despite the fact that he’s never let them all put up decorations before the first, with the snow and the decorations being slowly added on the streets, it suddenly feels like Christmas is only around the corner; and very abruptly he has Will and Lyra hanging off his arm and begging to put the Christmas tree up.

“It’s the first of December, remember?” he reminds them. “That’s not until Sunday.”

“Fine,” Lyra says, kicking her shoe against the ground and crossing her arms, but Will starts to dance around the living room singing _you better not shout, you better not cry!_ over and over again. “But, remember, if I explode into little pieces from pent up excitement because I have nowhere to channel it, it’s your fault.”

“I know you’re not going to explode, because that’s physically impossible, so your guilt trip hasn’t worked.”

Lyra narrows her eyes up at him and crosses her arms. “Alright, you win this round, but don’t expect me to let you have the next one so easily.”

“We always put the tree up on the first!” Jon calls after her as she stomps away to the playroom.

“I think it’s time we break that tradition!” she argues, then disappears into the room. 

She’s not really picking a fight, she’s just making a fuss to see if he’ll crack, so Jon isn’t particularly upset about her little show. He just rolls his eyes fondly and goes back to making dinner.

Will abandons his song to pad over to Jon and tug at his jeans.

“Hey, buddy,” Jon greets, reaching down to swipe his hand through Will’s hair.

“Daddy, why does Lyra argue all the time?”

Jon glances down at him for a moment, then back up to the vegetables he’s chopping. “She likes getting her way.”

“Oh,” Will murmurs, but says nothing more. He doesn’t wander away either, so Jon pauses chopping so he can encourage Will into the seat on the other side of the bench.

Jon slides a couple pieces of raw carrot over to Will, who starts to chomp them quietly.

“So, school’s almost over for the year,” Jon starts. “Only a few weeks left.”

Will is looking at Jon with wide, intent eyes, but keeps chewing.

“Do you like this school?” Jon asks. They’ve had this conversation several times before, of course, particularly following the incident that had ended in the fight, but Jon likes to keep checking in.

He’d had his final meeting of the year at Winterfell Primary only today, with Brienne, their teacher Ms Mordane, and the special needs assistant Mr Cassel. It had gone really well, as they had been all year, and while Mr Cassel had suggested that Jon consider a couple days a week of alternative schooling arrangements to suit the needs of both Will and Lyra, they’d all agreed that they should keep with their current program until the school year was over; barring any major changes or developments, of course.

Jon will take the suggestion very seriously, and he’ll look into special education schools for both Lyra and Will, but he’s hesitant to separate them, at least for now. He will have to at some point - because while Lyra is content with the extra work she’s being given in class as well as the amount of reading Jon encourages at home, and Will’s speech and writing skills have improved so immensely even since they moved to Winterfell, and they’re even starting to try and teach him how to read - eventually it won’t be enough. 

“Yes,” Will tells him, dragging his carrot around the bench top, then putting his two full sticks and his half eaten one together to create a lopsided triangle.

“Do you like your teachers?” Jon asks, to try and get some more information.

“Yes.”

“Which ones?” Jon questions, because he’s not entirely sure Will is saying yes because it’s the truth or because he’s just saying what he thinks Jon wants to hear.

“Both,” Will decides, leaning his head down to try and put all three carrots in his mouth without touching them.

“Use your hands,” Jon says. “You can’t eat straight off the bench.”

Will frowns at him, then locks his eyes with Jon’s and tries again.

“With your hands,” Jon repeats. “It’s bad manners to eat it like that.”

“But I want to,” Will replies, resting his chin on the edge of the bench and staring at them forlornly. He doesn’t try again, though if Jon had to guess that’s probably more because it didn’t work the first time rather than because he’s been asked not to.

“It will be easier, too, and you’ll get to eat them faster.”

Will sits up in his chair and starts to eat them normally again, as if the whole thing never happened.

“Mr Cassel said we should keep working on your reading over the holidays.”

“Hate reading,” Will mumbles.

“It will get easier,” Jon promises. “We’ll do a little bit every night, and we’ll pick a really good book for us to work with.”

“Moana?” Will asks, perking up suddenly, smiling widely.

“Sure,” Jon agrees easily, because if Will is excited about it then it’ll be easier to get him to sit down and do it. 

Will immediately starts into a rendition of You’re Welcome, and slides off his chair so he can dance about the room singing again. Jon’s heart feels fits to burst, and he watches for a moment, caught in up the joy created from such a simple act. Eventually, though, he gets back to making dinner.

He’s interrupted a few minutes later by Lyra, this time, who stomps into the kitchen with paper in hand. She thrusts her drawing at him, and Jon puts down the spatula he’s using to fry chicken with so he can look at it.

“This is us putting the Christmas tree up,” Lyra informs him, arms crossed as she stares up at him.

“And we will,” Jon agrees, “on the first.”

“No, the picture very clearly says _today.”_

And it does, right in the top corner she’s written in huge capital letters TODAY.

Jon sets his shoulders and gets ready for the debate she’s clearly not going to let go.

“We’ve never done it before the first. It’s not even Christmastime yet.”

“All the shops have their decorations up!” Lyra argues.

“That’s because they want people’s money.”

“They can have it!” Lyra says. “It’s Christmas!”

“No, it’s not December yet. Putting our decorations up on the first marks the transition into Christmas. Otherwise it would just be Christmas all year.”

Lyra gasps loudly and takes the picture from him, then runs away. Jon stares after her feeling very much like that was the _wrong_ thing to say. She rushes back into the room not even a minute later, in such a hurry she’s still gripping her crayon in hand, and then gives him back the picture.

All she’s done is cross out the big TODAY she’d written the corner and replaced it with ALL YEAR.

Jon turns the stove down so his chicken doesn’t burn and then squats down to be level with her. More debating to be had, then.

“When I was your age, we always did the tree on the first,” Jon tells her. “My mum and I would put it up, just the two of us, and then we’d drink hot chocolate all day and stay in our pyjamas and watch Christmas movies. Which is what we do, isn’t it?”

Lyra nods, taking the picture back from him slowly, clearly trying to figure out where he’s going with this.

“So it means a lot to me that I get to do that now with you two. I’ve always done it like this, and I love sharing that with you.”

Jon is pretty sure it’s not manipulation if he’s telling the truth.

Lyra bites her lip, then kneels onto the floor and uses the crayon she’d brought in to cross out ALL YEAR and write FIRST OF DECEMBER.

“Thanks, baby,” Jon murmurs, tweaking her on the chin. “I’m gonna put it on the fridge.”

“Hey, daddy?”

“Yeah?”

Lyra goes quiet for a long moment, so long that Jon turns his head to look at her as he puts her picture up.

“I wish mummy was here.”

Jon feels like the breath is knocked from his lungs, as he always does when Ygritte is so suddenly brought up. He kneels down again, taking Lyra’s hands in his and rubbing his thumbs over the back of her hand. This is never an easy conversation.

“Me too,” he says quietly. “But you know, she loved Christmas. It was her favourite holiday, and I know she wouldn’t want us to be sad.”

“It’s my favourite holiday as well,” Lyra tells him, like he didn’t already know that. She purses her lips for a long moment, then exhales loudly. “What else do we have in common? ‘cuz I don’t look like her.”

“No, you look like me,” he says, sweeping his hand over her cheek. “Will looks like her, though. But he’s quiet like me, and you take after your mum.”

“Do I?” she asks hopefully.

“You do,” he confirms. “She was also very stubborn, and liked things going her way. But she was strong, just like you are, and she was a very brave woman. Funny in her own way, and laughed at her own jokes.”

Lyra overs her mouth with her a hand, a little giggle poking through. “I do that.”

“You’re pretty funny, too,” Jon agrees. “So you should laugh at yourself, no matter what anyone tells you.”

Lyra places her hands over his forearm, looking much more serious and vulnerable now. “Do you think she’d like me?”

“Oh, Lyra.” Jon sweeps her into his arms, resting his head atop hers. He’s tried to talk to them both about Ygritte over the years, and he’s always kept all the family photos they had of the four of them up, and every year when it’s her birthday Jon sits them both down and tells them about her. But neither of them have ever come to him before, have never asked questions like this. “She _loved_ you. Both of you, more than anything. She used to say –“

Jon feels like he’s going to cry, suddenly. Remembering Ygritte as she was, thinking about what could have been for her and the kids, always makes him upset. She deserved more than what she got, and his kids deserved more than this, too.

“You remember that I told you guys that she liked to have a lot of adventures?”

Lyra nods against his chest, fiddling with his fingers.

“She did some pretty amazing things in her life, but she used to say that you and Will were the greatest thing she ever did.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, baby. Really.”

Lyra sniffles, then reaches up to rub her nose. Jon stands them both up, hitching Lyra against his hip and getting a couple tissues for her. He uses one to wipe her nose, then the other to pat her face dry.

“I love you, daddy,” Lyra murmurs, snuggling into his neck. “Thanks for making me feel better.”

“I love you too, munchkin. And you know you can tell me anything, I’ll always be here for you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

By the time Jon has put them both to bed and is getting ready himself, he’s absolutely exhausted.

The warm shower had soothed his body, but had given him way too much opportunity to think. He thinks he handled the situation with Lyra pretty well, that he’d been able to tell her about Ygritte without making her too sad. Ygritte would have been much surer of herself, he thinks, scrubbing his hands over his face.

While he’s brushing his teeth, his phone rings from his back pocket. He pulls it out and rinses his mouth, and sees it’s Sansa calling.

She doesn’t usually call him so late, particularly not on a Tuesday evening.

“Jon!” she greets, before he’s even said anything. “Guess what!”

Jon chuckles at her enthusiasm, as unusual as it is, flicking his bathroom light off and making his way back into his bedroom. “What?”

“No, guess!” She says, then laughs loudly.

Is she . . . drunk? Huh. It’s kind of cute. He’s not sure he’s ever seen her drunk, but he likes that it’s removed some her reservations, that she’s not second guessing telling him whatever she wants to tell him.

He tries to think if she’d told him what she was doing to today, but all he can come up with is that she said she was going to decorate the downstairs bathrooms now she’s finished them.

“I don’t know,” he answers finally, pushing his glasses up his nose as he looks over his bookshelf, trying to find the next book in the series he’s been reading. “You . . . found a really nice plant for the bathroom?”

Sansa pauses suddenly, holding her breath. She lets it out loudly, then says, “Well I _did,_ and it’s very cute, but no, that’s not what I meant. Guess again.”

He truly has no idea what it could be, nor why she’s calling him while drunk, and not even really why she sounds so happy. But he’s not going to ruin it and stop the game, even though he has very little guesses, because she’s obviously excited and he doesn’t want to bring her down. So tries to think of what else is going with her.

He knows therapy has been going well, despite the lows that usually accompany her for a day or so after her sessions. Actually, he’s pretty sure she had an appointment today –

“You had a good session with Alys today?”

“Oh my gods, you’re so bad at this. No, that’s not fair, it’s actually _kind_ of related to Alys.”

“I’m confused,” he informs her, smiling softly as he pulls a book from the shelf. “Um, related to Alys, okay –“

Sansa laughs and he hears something ruffle through the phone, but has no idea what it is. “I’ll just tell you,” she says, and he can _hear_ the smile in her voice.

“Alright, I’m listening.” He makes his way to the light switch and flicks it off, leaving the room bathed only in the light of his bedside table lamp.

“Okay, okay, so Rickon and Bran and Arya and Robb – oh and also Jeyne was there, and Gendry came around for a bit, and I was going to invite you but then it was a school night and also Arya said she’d bring _vodka_ –“

“It’s okay Sans,” he says, trying to smother his chuckle. The vodka certainly explains it. Jon slides into bed, pulling the covers up over his knees and resting the book in his lap, leaving the cover closed for now. “Keep going.”

“Right, well, to be fair I didn’t know that partners were invited, I thought that this was just like a Stark sibling thing, because that’s what Robb made it out to be – hey, speaking of Robb, did you and he sort it out?”

Jon can’t really keep up with her rambling, and truthfully he’s a little taken aback at how _bubbly_ she is, because he’s never seen her remotely like this. It’s not bad, in fact Jon rather likes how happy she sounds, but it is different.

“Yeah, and I spoke with Arya, too,” Jon replies anyway. “It was a pretty tough conversation, but it needed to be had.”

It had been tough. Jon regrets bringing it up at dinner a couple weeks ago, because it had so thoroughly ruined the night. Arya is lucky she hadn’t interrupted while he’d been arguing with Robb over it that night, otherwise he would have turned on her, too. If he was thinking through any of what he was saying, he probably would have anyway, but he’d hardly collected himself from when Sansa had answered her door looking absolutely _gorgeous,_ and then he’d been sat beside her while Robb had tried to convince him to go another date, and he’d not let up even though Jon had repeatedly asked him to, and then, well . . . then it had all gone badly.

But he’d called both Robb and Arya a few days later, just to sort it all out, to clear the air. At the end of it all, Jon still doesn’t really understand, his own experiences with Daenerys aside. But he supposes that he’ll follow Sansa’s lead on this one, and let it go. He doesn’t want to, but what else can he do? He’s made it very clear to both of them how upset he is, but Sansa doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, and he isn’t going to keep bringing up something that she doesn’t want to talk about. 

Sansa suddenly sobers on the other end, and he hears the ruffle again. “Thanks for being in my corner, Jon.”

“Aye, of course,” he says, and hopes she’s a bit too tipsy to be able to tell how his voice croaks. “Um, so your family was over?”

“Oh, right!” She doesn’t sound as enthusiastic as before, but some happiness creeps back into his voice. “Right, so every year since mum and dad, the four of the them have been putting the family Christmas tree up together, and they did used to invite me but I’ve never gone before this year because – well, because – but this year I _could,_ so they all came here and there was vodka –“

Jon presses his palm into his mouth to hide his chuckle, because she’d already said that, but he doesn’t cover it well enough.

Sansa gasps, interrupting herself. “Don’t laugh at me!” she says, scandalised, and he can imagine her holding her hand to her chest. “It was _really_ good.” 

“I believe you,” he replies earnestly. “Arya gets the good stuff.”

Sansa groans, and there’s that ruffle _again._ “It was so good,” she says, but now her voice is muffled.

“What are you doing?” he asks curiously. 

“Oh, I’m in bed. Why, what are you doing?”

Jon feels like his brain has short circuited. Okay, technically he’s in bed too so he knows how innocent it is, but oh gods, she’s on the phone to him while she’s in her _bed_. This is just too much. 

“It’s a bit early for bed,” Jon says awkwardly, because he can’t answer that he’s _also_ in bed. It would lead only to a rabbit hole of thoughts.

Sansa huffs a loud laugh. “Jon Snow, I would bet my entire wardrobe that you’re in bed, too.”

Jon takes a deep breath, running his hand through his curls and propping his elbow on his knee in agitation. What is she _doing_ to him?

“That’s a pretty strong bet,” Jon tries to tease, unsure if it falls flat or not. “I know how much you like your clothes.”

“That’s how utterly sure I am,” Sansa says seriously. “So? Are you?”

Oh dear gods this is the start of several choice fantasies that he should not indulge in either in his head, or in real life.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, then rushes to prompt, “Arya had vodka?”

Sansa doesn’t reply for a long, tense moment, but then she picks her story back up. “Yep, so we’re decorating, we’re having shots, it’s really rather lovely, but suddenly I realise that they’re all just putting the decorations _everywhere._ Like, there’s no order to it at all.”

His own tree has never had any order, but he says, “Right,” anyway because she obviously feels strongly about this.

“And _everyone_ knows that it’s the biggest baubles at the bottom, and then they get smaller the higher they are on the tree.”

“Uh, _does_ everyone know that?” Jon asks, thinking of his own disaster tree that is always produced. Even when he was kid, his mum had always let him do whatever he wanted to the tree, and it had had some . . . interesting results.

“Well, _they_ should,” Sansa says indignantly. “We had instructions on how to decorate our tree growing up, Jon. I wrote them myself, so I know how good they are, and how well they work.”

“You wrote . . . instructions?”

“It was a group effort! We all agreed that that was the best way to decorate, and it _was._ Our tree was always so beautiful. Anyway, turns out, after mum and dad died, those four decided they didn’t want to go by the instructions anymore, so they’ve had ugly trees for three years. And you know what I said?”

Jon is sure she’s finally getting to the point of the story, and a smile is playing on his lips at how worked up she is. He hardly ever see’s Sansa like this, and it really is nice.

“What did you say?”

“I said that it was my house, and that we decorate the tree _my_ way. And they argued, but I put my foot down, Jon, because I can’t have an ugly tree. And I _won!_ I out-stubborned Arya Stark! I haven’t done that in . . . gods, it’s been a long time. I don’t remember the last time I held my ground with _anyone.”_

Jon’s heart swells. There’s so much she’s said there to be proud of, but he can’t believe that it’s _him_ she wants to share her victory with. He knows she’s been working on letting out her truth, on making sure that she doesn’t just go along with things she doesn’t want to, and he’s so overwhelmed with joy for her that she’s reached a milestone - however small it might seem to someone else - today.

“I’m proud of you, Sans.”

Sansa sighs happily, and he can picture the exact smile on her face; the little one, the one that pulls up the right corner of her mouth and crinkles her eye.

“I’m proud of me, too. And I know it sounds stupid, to be proud over a _tree_ –“

“It isn’t stupid,” he immediately rebuts. “It’s not stupid at all, Sansa. It’s really hard to stand your ground, especially to family. And especially to _your_ family, I think Arya is one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met.”

“That’s what I thought!” Sansa laughs again, and Jon wants to spend the rest of his life hearing it. Making her laugh, listening to the stories that make her happy, celebrating these little things with her. He just feels so whole.

Well. He would, if this were what he so desperately wants it to be. But that’s not a conversation to have while she’s drunk, if it’s one to ever have. He’d been so close to leaning forward and kissing her the other day, after dinner, and even though she’d had such an amazing smile on her face, he wouldn’t dare to kiss her without knowing that she wanted him to. She’s already been through being taken advantage of, of having her choices taken away from her, and he never wants to put her in a position where he makes her feel uncomfortable, or pressured in any way.

“Thanks for listening, Jon,” Sansa sighs, a happy little thing that makes his fist clench around the edge of his book. 

Jon releases his fist and puts the book on his bedside table, very sure he’s never going to be able to focus on it now.

“Thanks for telling me.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are few things worse than a sick child, Jon has learnt. And there is almost nothing worse than a sick Lyra.
> 
> When Will is sick, he goes even quieter than normal, and generally cries a lot, but all he ever wants is to just lay in bed with Jon and sleep in his arms.
> 
> Lyra, however, always makes a big fuss. The bigger the fuss, the less sick she is, usually, so when she comes downstairs on the Wednesday morning following the tree decorating, with a cough and a runny nose, demanding only that he immediately give her some medicine, Jon knows she’s pretty sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a longer chapter bc I'm desperately trying to make this happen before Christmas 

Jon ponders for days whether to ask Sansa to join he and the kids in decorating their tree.

He wants to, gods he wants to, but he recognises that it’s a selfish desire. They never have friends join them; decorating the tree is always just family. It used to be the four of them, and now it’s the three, and they have a set of traditions that they follow.

That very clearly does _not_ include friends. If Jon invites Sansa, it will just confuse both he and the kids. So despite the fact that he wants her there, and that the kids likely wouldn’t object, he doesn’t invite her.

It would be too complicated. Too messy. He tends to avoid that these days, if he can help it.

And so the day comes and goes, filled to the brim with laughter and joy and the tree is as ugly as it always is, but Lyra and Will are delighted and spend the afternoon cuddled up into his arms while they all drink hot chocolate and watch Christmas classics. Despite the longing in his heart, Jon genuinely enjoys the day.

He even gets a little excited for Christmas.

And then the worst happens.

There are few things worse than a sick child, Jon has learnt. And there is almost _nothing_ worse than a sick Lyra.

When Will is sick, he goes even quieter than normal, and generally cries a lot, but all he ever wants is to just lay in bed with Jon and sleep in his arms.

Lyra, however, always makes a big fuss. The bigger the fuss, the less sick she is, usually, so when she comes downstairs on the Wednesday morning following the tree decorating, with a cough and a runny nose, demanding only that he immediately give her some medicine, Jon knows she’s pretty sick.

He feels her temperature, and when she feels quite warm to the touch, he sends her back to bed with the promise he’ll be up in a moment with the medicine and a thermometer. Getting Will into his uniform and ready for school without Lyra turns out to be quite the impossible task, and when Arya shows up to get them Jon feels so stressed he might cry.

Arya takes one look at him, not even entirely dressed even though he always leaves for work at this time, and at Will who is sitting at the kitchen counter and screaming that he won’t go to school without Lyra, Lyra shouting from upstairs that he needs to come up and give her her medicine, and says, “Rough day, huh?”

“Lyra’s sick,” he explains, closing the door behind her.

“Hm,” Arya hums, warily toeing her shoes off. “Gendry’s been sick, too.”

Jon isn’t stupid. He knows Arya loves his kids, he _does,_ but he also knows that she hardly ever sees them in such a state. Jon is very proud of how well behaved Will and Lyra are, but when they get into moods, they are _terrors._ He tries to contain them during those times, trying to teach them to express their emotions in ways that aren’t tantrums, but they’re still only five. It doesn’t work all of the time.

And having lived so far away from Arya for the majority of the time he’s had the kids . . . well, she’s certainly never seen what it’s like when one of them sick.

“Hey, buddy,” Arya greets, ruffling Will’s hair.

Will shoves her hand away, to Arya’s surprise, and then slams his hands on the counter.

“Is Lyra coming to school?” he demands Jon, fists bunched.

“No, bud, she’s sick,” Jon reminds him. He takes one of Will’s hands and tries to gently pry it open. “Now, we don’t throw tantrums in this house, do we? We don’t push people’s hands away. You have to go school.”

“Is Lyra coming?” Will repeats, angrily frowning up at Jon.

“No.”

“I’m – I’m not – I’m _not_ going then!”

“Will, you have to go,” Jon says sternly. “Upstairs, now. Get dressed.”

Will jumps from his seat and runs away from Jon before he can catch him, disappearing into the lounge room.

“Gods,” Arya swears under her breath. “Should he even go in this state?”

Jon sighs, eyes closing and head falling back. “I don’t know,” he admits. “He’ll probably disrupt everyone, but . . . gods, I don’t know.”

If he rewards Will for this behaviour now, it’ll probably come back to bite him the arse. But Will doesn’t have the memory Lyra does, and doesn’t test for reactions like she does either, so keeping him home _probably_ won’t result in a repeat performance.

Fuck, he’ll just have to cross that bridge later. 

“Keep him here, I think,” Arya advises quietly. “I’ll stay for half an hour, ‘til I have to run to work. I’ll keep him occupied, you go up to Lyra.”

He doesn’t know what he’d do without his friends. With no family of any kind – well, except for Daenerys, who he refuses to have any contact with – and no partner, raising two kids can be a real difficulty. Mostly he’s blessed with the two of them behaving well, but when they don’t . . . gods, he’d never be able to do this alone.

“Thanks, Arya,” he says, then spins on the spot and takes the stairs two at a time.

Lyra’s shouts have devolved into tears and sobs, and when he gets to her room half a box of tissues are strewn all over the place.

“My head hurts!” she cries.

“I know, baby, I know,” he soothes. He hates seeing her like this, no matter that they’ve both been sick a few times in their lives. It doesn’t get any easier, especially when they’re _truly_ sick. And after Ygritte . . . well, Jon has a bit of anxiety around those he loves being ill. The first time the twins had gotten sick after Ygritte died, he’d held it together long enough to nurse them back to health, but he’d been an absolute _mess_ afterwards. It’s better now, he can handle it much easier because he knows they’re sick but they’re not _sick._ Still, there are a lot of reasons why he tries to avoid his kids coming down with something.

Somehow, getting flu shots had completely slipped his mind this year.

Lyra feels even warmer now than before, so when he leaves to go to the bathroom for supplies, he wets a face cloth, too. Dread settles in his gut as he digs through the medicine cabinet, unable to find any kids’ Tylenol. He brings some Vaseline with him, and the cloth, but no Tylenol.

“Dad,” she whines, voice pitched lower because of her stuffy sinuses. As he lays the cloth over her forehead, she sniffles, “where’s the medicine?”

“We don’t have any left, baby,” he tells her, sitting beside her on the bed and pushing her damp hair away from her face. “I’m gonna ask Arya to get some for you. Now, put this in, okay?”

“If I don’t have medicine, I’m going to _die,”_ she says, but opens her mouth for the thermometer.

“You won’t die, it’s just a cold,” he replies, knowing it’s true but feeling a little uneasy nonetheless. He unscrews the jar, dabbing a little under her nose, and when the thermometer beeps he quickly checks it and then gets her shirt off to rub the Vaseline into her chest, too.

“What did it say?” Lyra asks, eyes closed.

“It’s 38,” he tells her. “So we’ll keep an eye on it through the day. Are you hungry? I can bring you some toast.”

“With tomato,” she agrees, but he can tell she’ll be asleep by the time he brings it back.

He quickly gets dressed himself, then rushes back downstairs, aware that he doesn’t have much time before Arya has to get to work. He has to call his own office to let them know he won’t be coming in, too, but that’s just going to have to wait a few moments.

“Hey, Arya, we don’t have any kids Tylenol, would you mind running to grab some? Or you can stay and I’ll go?”

Arya appears from around the corner, a grimace on her face. “I’ll go get it,” she says. “Man, he’s a bit of nightmare, isn’t he?”

Jon shakes his head, exhausted already. “Thank gods they’re not like this all the time. I don’t know how I’d cope.”

She claps him on the shoulder, and says, “You should call Sansa. When Rickon or Bran chucked the shits like this, she was the only one of all of us that could get them to quiet down. Even mum and dad were in awe of her powers.”

Jon is a little surprised at that, though he knows he shouldn’t be. Sansa had taken so well to the twins, he should have known that she’d always been great with kids.

But he can’t call Sansa, no matter what Arya says. He’s become too dependant on her already. Adding in the whole mess of feelings and, well . . . no, he can’t call her.

And they’re _his_ kids. He should be able to handle one sick child and a few tears from the other.

Arya leaves quickly, when Will starts to shout again that he’s not going to school, saying she’ll be back as soon as possible.

Jon assures Will that he’s not going, then makes Lyra’s toast, and while it’s down he hides the TV remote, deciding that Will would definitely remember his tantrum being rewarded with TV. He then calls the office to tell them he’s not coming in, phone stuck between his ear and shoulder as goes upstairs with Lyra’s food. Lyra is asleep like he thought she’d be, so he leaves it on her bed side and then goes downstairs to try and coax Will out from underneath the beanbag and blanket he’s hidden himself under.

He makes no headway in five minutes, and then his phone starts to ring. Jon tries a last ditch effort to get Will out, but to no avail, and by the time he gets to his phone it’s stopped ringing.

Arya’s left a voicemail, an apologetic, “ _Jon, I’m_ so _sorry, Gendry called and said there’s been an accident at the gym. I have to go and get it sorted, but I’ve called Sansa and she’s going to grab the Tylenol from me and be at yours in fifteen. I’m really sorry, I hope your day gets better.”_

It’s fine. That’s fine. There’s no difference between Arya or Sansa coming to his rescue, none at all. She’s just coming to drop the Tylenol around, and then she’ll leave and it’ll be fine.

That is, of course, the opposite of what happens.

She arrives with the Tylenol, of course she does, but like an absolute angel, she’s also brought a coffee for him and ingredients for chicken soup, too.

“How is she?” Sansa asks, putting all the groceries away despite him saying she doesn’t have to, that she should go home and worry about the things she has to do today.

Jon takes a long, grateful sip from his coffee, then puts it down and says, “I don’t need to take her to the doctor, at least not yet. She’s asleep for now, but will be a menace when she wakes up.”

“And Will?” Sansa asks worriedly, brows creased together as takes the chicken Jon passes to her and puts it in the fridge. “Arya said he wasn’t doing so good.”

Jon shakes his head slowly. “No, he’s . . . no, he’s not. I can’t get him out from his blankets.”

Sansa bites her lip. “Is it presumptuous of me to ask if I can give it a try?”

If she can get him out, Jon is pretty sure he’ll marry her on the spot.

Will responds best to familiarity, Jon knows, but he also behaves better when he wants someone to be proud of him. And he loves Sansa enough to want that, is familiar enough to respond, but not so familiar that he wouldn’t care what she thinks.

Jon nods, and they put away the rest what of she’s bought.

Sansa quietly makes her way into the lounge and Jon ponders following her, to see what she says and does, but decides he best leave her to it.

He pours some Tylenol for Lyra, then takes it up for her; he gently shakes her awake for long enough to have a couple bites of toast, and then the medicine, and she’s back to sleep before he’s even left. Still, he wets her cloth again, so he can leave her be for a few hours, then goes downstairs.

He finds Sansa laying beside the burrito Will has tucked himself into, her hand disappearing into the tight roll as she murmurs quietly to him.

She catches sight of him as he comes in, and smiles gently and waves him over. Jon hesitantly makes his way over to them, then sits down at the head of Will’s burrito.

“Hey, dad’s here now, baby,” Sansa says. “Wanna come out and say hello?”

“No,” Will’s muffled voice comes from inside.

“Alright, that’s okay. He’s just worried about you, like I am.”

Will is quiet for a few long moments, and Sansa is staring resolutely at where her hand is likely holding Will’s, and Jon takes the opportunity to stare at _her._

She’s obviously already been up for some time, a stripe of paint across her cheek and wearing the most worn clothes he’s ever seen her in. Her beautiful red hair is up in a bandana, a few tendrils peeking out and curling around her face, and dear lord, Jon is edging _dangerously_ close to falling in love with her.

He needs to stop this, _now._ He should have a long time ago, truthfully. He _cannot_ pine after her. He owes it to her, and himself, and his kids, really. Lyra is too intuitive, and she already knows too much.

“Worried about me?” Will asks.

“Yeah, baby. Can you tell me why you’re upset?”

More than mildly astonished, Jon watches as Will slowly pokes his head out of his blanket. His face is red and blotchy, and he’s obviously been crying. Jon leans down to kiss the top of his head, as taken with emotion as he always is when it comes to his kids, trying to offer some comfort.

“Is Lyra okay?” Will questions, lips pouting as if he’s about to burst into tears again.

Jon doesn’t know how much Will remembers of Ygritte’s sickness, if he remembers any of it all. Lyra only remembers bits and pieces and doesn’t like to talk about it, and while Will is probably less likely to have understood what was happening at the time and to remember it now, at times like these Jon thinks that there’s just an intuition that the two of them have about the truth. Ygritte and he and tried so hard to shield them from the truth, but some things couldn’t be helped.

“Yeah, she’s okay. She’s just got a cold,” Sansa answers.

“Is Lyra okay?” he repeats.

“She’s okay,” Jon answers this time. Will looks up at him, then suddenly throws his blanket off and drops Sansa’s hand to jump into Jon’s arms.

“Is she okay?”

Jon kisses Will’s temple as his arms wind around Jon’s neck, Will clutching at the hair at Jon’s nape. Sansa sits up, watching the two of them, and Jon mouths _thank you_ to her over Will’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Jon answers, clearing the lump in his throat and rubbing Will’s back. “She’s okay.”

Will takes a deep, shaking breath, slumping against Jon’s chest as he turns his head slightly. He sticks his foot out, just a little, but enough to rest it against Sansa’s knee. Sansa circles her hand around his ankle, a soft smile on her face, and looking at Jon and Will with such adoration that Jon feels like his heart is swelling and breaking at the same time.

“I’m hungry,” Will says after a few minutes of them all sitting there together quietly.

“You didn’t eat your breakfast,” Jon agrees. “Why don’t you run to the kitchen and finish your bowl while I talk to Sansa for a second.”

Will scampers away from them both, and Jon watches him go, unable to bring his eyes to Sansa’s just yet.

Jon doesn’t know how he ever got by without her. She’s such an integral part of his life now, of _him,_ and it’s only been a few months. It scares him, how quickly she’s woven her way into their little family, but he can’t imagine things ever being different now.

“Thanks for coming, Sans,” he says finally, turning to look at her. “This isn’t . . . well, I suppose it’s a bit different to what you thought you were coming back to Winterfell for.” 

Sansa goes quiet and looks down, avoiding his eye. Neither of them have talked much more about their experiences before they met each other, mostly because there’s no need to bring it all up again. Still, he feels lighter now that she knows. He hopes she does, too.

But on days like today, he feels awful for having dragged her into his mess. She’s got her own things to worry about, her own life to get sorted, and here he is just asking her to come around and help him with kids that she, by rights, has no obligation to.

“No,” she admits finally. “This is much better.”

Jon’s breath is knocked from his lungs. “Surely – surely that can’t be true. Especially on days like today.”

She reaches over to take his hand, and Jon feels wrecked.

“You take the bad with the good when it comes to family.”

Family.

_Family._

Yeah, he’s going to kiss her. He wants to – no, he _needs_ to, like he needs the air in his lungs. He leans slightly closer, and he thinks she might, too.

“Sansa, I –“

From the corner of his eye, he sees Will reappear at the entrance to the longue.

Jon pulls back from Sansa abruptly, furious at himself for slipping like that. He doesn’t – she isn’t – he _shouldn’t_ –

“I want to see Lyra,” Will says.

Jon takes a deep breath, refusing to look at Sansa. There’s no _way_ she doesn’t know what he just meant to do, and he couldn’t bear to see the rejection on her face.

 _She just got out of an awful relationship!_ He screams at himself. _Your kids are here! Stop it, stop it, stop it._

Jon pushes himself up from the floor, feeling unsteady on his feet.

“Let’s leave Lyra alone,” Jon says, then clears his throat. “Don’t want you to get sick, too.”

Behind him, he hears Sansa stand too, and awkwardly shuffle. “Uh, I should probably go.”

Will whimpers, reaching his hands out and falling against Jon’s knee, his fingers winding into Jon’s jeans.

“No, daddy, please, make Sansa stay. I don’t want her to go.”

_Yeah, me either buddy._

“She has to go home and work, Will,” he stays instead, trying to sound like he’s not kicking her out.

He may not want her to go, but it’s probably for the best if she does. Who knows what other utterly stupid things he might do if she stays.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning to get you for school,” Sansa says, avoiding looking at Jon as she ruffles Will’s hair.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Will shouts, pouncing from Jon’s leg and winding himself around Sansa’s. “No, Sansa, stay, stay! Please don’t leave me!”

Sansa bends down, cupping Will’s face in her hands. “I’m just going to my house, little one. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Will bursts into tears proper this time, choking on his own breath as he drags his hands over Sansa’s face and begs her not to leave.

Jon kneels down next to them, shoulder bumping into Sansa’s – he moves away, just a hair width, but enough that she isn’t pressed against him – and rubs Will’s back.

Jon _hates_ seeing Will so upset. He knows that when he gets into moods like this he finds it all the more difficult to properly express himself, and Jon will ask later why he was so upset but for now there’s almost no hope for Will telling them both why he wants Sansa to stay so badly.

“Hey, shh, shh, it’s alright, it’s okay, little one,” Sansa soothes, wiping her thumbs across Will’s face to try and dry his tears.

“You need to slow your breathing, baby,” Jon murmurs. “Remember, like this. One, two, three, four. Yeah, with me now. One, two, three, four.”

Will stares at Jon with wide eyes as he follows Jon’s breathing, his little chest going up and down as he breathes along with Jon. When Will has calmed down enough that Jon isn’t worried he’s going to pass out from lack of oxygen, he turns to Sansa.

She’s already looking at him, the question in her eyes, and Jon tries to give her a reassuring smile.

If this were a normal situation, Jon would stick with his boundaries. He’s already folded on one of Will’s demands this morning, and he doesn’t usually give in so easily. But Will, while often expressing himself through dramatic emotion, is not often an hysterical child. He can be sometimes, which is why they have breathing techniques, but he has to get pretty upset to behave as he has this morning.

“Only if you’re not doing anything,” he mutters to Sansa, trying to make sure she doesn’t feel pressured.

“If it’s okay with you . . .”

“Stay?” Will asks, tracing his finger over Sansa’s cheek.

“Yeah darling, I’ll stay,” Sansa murmurs.

For all the fuss he threw up, Will only nods at the confirmation and then turns on his heel.

Sansa blinks, obviously surprised, while Jon wipes his hand over his face. He hates not knowing if he did the right thing; and he hates that he’s dragged Sansa into this.

Jon checks his watch then groans.

“It’s only eight thirty,” he says, pressing his fingers into his eyes as he feels a headache start to come on. He’s fucking _exhausted._

Sansa hums beside him, shifting on her knees. “You sure you’re okay with me staying? I don’t have to.”

Jon gives her reassuring smile as his hands drop into his lap. “I think Will might murder me if I don’t let you.”

Sansa’s expression shutters, then closes off completely. He stares at her, taken aback at such a sudden shift in her demeanour. What did he say? He thinks wildly. He doesn’t . . . he’s never seen an expression like that on her face before, and he doesn’t know why his light-hearted teasing has invoked it.

She stands, dusting her knees, and turns away from him. “Right. Just here for Will.”

 _No,_ holy shit, that wasn’t what he –

Jon reaches for her hand, taking it in his gently. “Hey, Sans, I didn’t mean –“

“It’s fine, Jon. I guess I just thought – “ She breaks herself off, still not looking at him.

“Please,” he pleads desperately, still on his knees before her. “I really didn’t mean it like that. Would you tell me what you thought?”

She hesitates, but finally shakes her head. She still softens slightly, though Jon feels crushed nonetheless when she pulls her hand from his.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get started on that soup. You have work you need to do?”

She disappears around the corner before he replies, and Jon stays kneeling for several moments longer.

This is – this is _unbearable._

He’s always been the suffer in silence type, and he’s certainly withstood harsher things than this – things that are the worst times in his life, like his mother dying, or Ygritte getting sick – but Jon still feels this blow deep in soul.

And he knows why, too, and there’s no use denying it any longer.

He’s in love with her. Not just dangerously close, or half way there, like he’s told himself countless times.

He is completely, head over heels in love. She’s dropped into his life in a complete whirlwind, gifting him something he didn’t even know he needed with the most admirable selflessness he’s ever seen a person have. He never stood a chance.

Something has shifted within him, something unfamiliar and unrecognisable, so different to anything he’s ever felt before and making him think _this is it. She’s the one._

And he still can’t have her.

Jon follows his son and Sansa into the kitchen, hoping his melancholy isn’t painted all over his face.

When Lyra wakes a few hours later, Sansa leaves Jon and Will downstairs to go and lay with Lyra, sketch book in hand.

She’s glad for the reprieve, honestly.

Jon had tried several times to start conversation between them, asking how the house was going, when she’d seen her family last, whether she ever planned to go back to work. She answered all his questions (“Fine”, “the weekend”, “I’m not sure yet”), but she knows she wasn’t exactly responsive. He’d looked more and more deflated with each reply, but Sansa had looked away from him, trying to protect her heart.

If there’s any one thing she’s learnt about Jon, it’s that he’s not that good with words. So she _knows_ she shouldn’t take what he’d said to heart, likely he’d just been joking or something, but the possibility that he doesn’t actually want her around, is just putting up with her for the kids, is something that Sansa has worried about privately.

She knows how silly it is, objectively. At this point, they’ve spent a lot of time together – though when she thinks back, most of it has been with the kids – and they’ve shared things that, on Sansa’s side at least, she’s not put into words before. She likes to think that what’s happened in her past hasn’t affected her as much as it has, but in times like this she’s reminded that it’s in little, pervasive ways that Joffrey and his family have ruined her.

Maybe what Jon said couldn’t be construed as confirmation of ambivalence to somebody else, especially considering Jon has never before made her feel like he doesn’t want her around, not once; but to Sansa all she can hear is Jon saying he’d not want to her stay if Will hadn’t begged so desperately.

And she’d actually thought he was going to kiss her!

She never learns.

Still, she’s never been one who can be rude to people, so to be so short with Jon goes against all her instincts. She’s glad to have left him downstairs.

Lyra had perked up as soon as Sansa had come into her room, smiling widely and saying, “Oh my _gods,_ this is amazing!”

Sansa is laid in bed with her now, Lyra’s head tucked into the crook of her neck and her arm draped over Sansa’s chest, watching and giving soft instructions as Sansa sketches a design of a dress for Lyra.

Predictably, the dress is going to involve a lot of tulle, and be generally unwearable for everyday life.

“Hey, Sansa?” Lyra asks, voice sounding suspiciously sleepy again. Sansa is tracing down one side of the dress quietly, making some small alterations here and there to make the skirts more elegant.

“Hmm?” Sansa hums, pausing her task and tucking her pencil in the spiral of the notebook, then running her hand over Lyra’s hair.

“Are you interested in dating?”

Sansa stills, her breath hitching. What is this? Is this Lyra’s idea? Or has she heard it somewhere?

Sansa still feels too raw from what happened downstairs to delve into her thoughts.

“Depends on the person, I suppose.”

Lyra’s fingers tap over Sansa’s chest, occasionally reaching up the play with the pendant on her necklace.

“So if someone asked you on a date, you might say yes?”

“Why do you ask, munchkin?” Sansa says, instead of answering. She can’t deal with this right now. It’s all too much. To be here, in Jon’s home, with his beautiful kids and his kind and gentle nature, talking to his daughter about dating after she’d been through the emotional wringer of being convinced he was going to kiss her to being convinced he wants nothing to do with her.

Lyra goes quiet for a long moment, then finally says, “Daddy says I can’t tell you. But it _might_ be him doing the asking. If I knew anything about it. Or was allowed to tell you.”

Gods. Dear _gods._ Holy shit. Sansa feels like her brain is having a meltdown. Is Lyra . . . where did she . . . how does she . . .

She can’t even think the thought fully, not with the way her entire body suddenly feels like its tingling.

“Well, we better not go against what he says,” Sansa replies softly, trying to figure out what she could possibly say. “But if he were to ask, hypothetically of course . . . I would say yes. Is that okay with you?”

Yeah. Yeah that’s good. Rather put together, actually, Sansa’s proud of that one.

 _Don’t get ahead of yourself,_ Sansa reminds herself gently. _He could have asked her not to say anything because she got the idea in her head, and he didn’t want her to tell me something that isn’t true._

That’s the most likely scenario. She shouldn’t get her hopes up.

Still, even the thought that Lyra might be okay with her dating Jon . . . It causes a frenzy of emotion to flitter through her, too complex to deconstruct while Lyra is in her arms and Jon is downstairs.

At the very least, Sansa is feeling a little more sure she can let go what he’d said earlier.

“I would be very happy,” Lyra replies primly. “If I knew anything about it. Which I don’t.”

Sansa is trying not to smile, she really is, but when it breaks out across her face she can’t quash it back down. She feels giddy and hopeful, even though she keeps reminding herself not to get too ahead of herself.

After Lyra falls back to sleep, Sansa slowly detangles herself from the little girl and heads back downstairs, her notebook tucked under her arm and the smile still on her face.

Will is taking a nap, too, draped across Jon’s lap on the lounge as Jon tries to get some work done on his laptop.

Sansa pauses at the door frame for a moment, looking over him. He looks as good as he did the day she first saw him, and Sansa wants him just as much. But she wants more now, too, so much more. She wants _everything._ She’s never felt like this before.

The way she feels for Jon is special. She can’t risk messing it up by confessing her feelings on a day like today, when Lyra is sick and Will is upset and Jon is obviously exhausted. And if he was ready for a relationship, she knows he’d do something about it. Maybe he likes Sansa, like she likes him, but there’s probably a reason he isn’t crossing that line just yet.

But that’s alright. She’s happy to wait for him.

Jon is worth it.

But there’s just . . . one thing. That little, niggling thing that had burrowed in her earlier when she’d been so inexplicably hurt, and if they’re ever going to stand a chance at something, Sansa has to be able to speak up for herself. Her therapist has been actively encouraging it, and she’s not steered her wrong yet.

And Jon’s never made her feel like she shouldn’t speak her truth.

“Hey, I think I’m going to head off,” Sansa tells him eventually, pushing off from the wall. “Probably best to sneak out while they’re asleep, huh?”

Jon gives her a rueful smile, pushing his computer away and trying to gently move Will off his lap.

“Yeah, that’s probably a wise plan,” Jon murmurs.

He watches as she quietly packs her bag up, leaning against the counter.

Sansa’s thoughts linger with Lyra, and what happened earlier, and on a wave courage she probably wouldn’t have had if not for Lyra, Sansa blurts out, “Do you like having me around, Jon?”

His eyes go wide, obviously startled. “W-what?” he stammers.

“I know the kids do. But do _you?”_

He softens suddenly, reaching for her hand. “Sansa,” he says, gripping her hand in his, “I _love_ having you around. Any time you want to be here, I’d want you to come. And I . . . I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel like I don’t. I know that I ask a lot of you, too much, probably, and you don’t have to help as much you do if you don’t want to, I truly mean that. I guess what I’m trying to say is that -”

Jon goes very still, his eyes soft, but he doesn’t move closer to her, or do much of anything, really. She bites her lip, wondering if she can just kiss him, but . . . No. No, it doesn’t feel like the right time.

Will has had a terrible day, and Lyra is sick, and Sansa thinks that the first time she kisses Jon, she doesn’t want the possibility of his kids interrupting to be present. That seems too difficult to explain without any pretext. To kiss him now would be irresponsible.

Sansa is not an irresponsible person.

So she settles for something in between, fisting his shirt and leaning in to give him a swift kiss on the cheek.

“I love spending time with you, too,” she says, then moves away before either of them do something they shouldn’t.

He follows her out, quiet as always, and she wishes him luck with the afternoon and says she’ll see him tomorrow to take Will if not Lyra. The whole way home, Sansa can’t get rid of the warm feeling that’s settled in her gut.

On her drive home, Sansa calls Rickon and asks him to come ‘round to help her finish painting. She’d had a schedule for today that had flown out the window the second Arya had called and said Lyra was sick. Sansa doesn’t regret for one second the fact that she’d spent so long at Jon’s house, but she does want to get this painting done.

Rickon gets there only a half hour after Sansa arrives back home, arms laden with chips and beer, to which Sansa raises a brow and he just shrugs.

“I’m a growing boy,” he explains, kissing her on the cheek as he pushes past her and into the house.

“Rickon, you’re _nineteen,_ you’re not a boy.”

“But I _am_ growing,” he replies, dumping his haul on the counter.

She purses her lips, wondering if he’s going to let his beer sweat all over the counter, and when he makes no move to put it in the fridge she does it herself.

“So,” he says, pulling open a bag of chips and stuffing a couple in his mouth, “painting, you say?”

“Yeah. Upstairs is done, but I haven’t done anything down here yet. I was going to try and tackle the living room today.”

“What happened? You slack off?” he asks, smirking at her as he digs around the bag.

Sansa rolls her eyes. “That’s insulting,” she replies, turning her nose up. “No, Jon was having trouble with the kids so I was just ‘round helping out.”

This time the smirk that spreads across Rickon’s face is unbearably teasing. “Ah. And you _helped him out,_ did you?”

Sansa can immediately feel her cheeks heat, and to hide it she rushes from the room, saying, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, did you fuc –“

“Rickon!” Sansa screeches. “I will bribe you with McDonalds to not bring this up again.”

“Firstly, you were already bribing me with McDonalds to help you paint. _Secondly,_ I can’t tell if that was a ‘yeah we totally fucked but I don’t want to talk about it with my little brother’ embarrassment, or a ‘gods, I _wish_ we’d fucked but I was too shy to ask’ embarrassment.”

“So I’ve chosen this white for the walls,” Sansa says loudly. Rickon guffaws, continuing to chuckle around his chips as Sansa explains what she wants done.

The walls were previously a heady pale yellow, and Sansa can’t stand it. She also knows it’s going to make their job much harder, because they’ll need a few coats of paint to make sure that the yellow doesn’t peek through or tint the white.

Rickon sets his music up to play some classic rock, which she doesn’t mind. He works pretty quickly, despite the fact he stops a lot to get another beer or eat some more chips. He doesn’t have a steady hand, though, nor the patience for the cutting in, so Sansa paints all the edges with her fine brush while he rollers the main sections of the walls.

“Have you given more thought to uni?” Sansa asks eventually, quietly dipping her brush into the tray and wondering whether Rickon is going to tell her his plans.

“Yep,” Rickon says, but elaborates no further.

“And?” Sansa prompts.

“And it’s not for me. I’m gonna do an apprenticeship at the electricians.”

Sansa tries very hard not to pause in her painting, keeping her eyes set firmly on her track so they don’t dart over to Rickon is surprise.

Arya and Robb had both told her about Rickon’s job with Winterfell’s electricians, but she hadn’t seriously thought that he’d pursue the job any further than as a way to pass the time until he took up his degree.

She remembers him being so enthusiastic about potentially studying history on one of the rare occasions they talked over the phone.

That had been before their parents died.

“Really?” Sansa asks, trying to hide her surprise. “That’s . . .”

She hears Rickon scoff. “Yeah, whatever, San. Everyone else has already told me they think it’s terrible idea, I don’t need you to do it, too.”

Sansa immediately feels guilty. She didn’t mean to make him upset, or belittle his idea. He knows himself best, of course he does, but –

“What would mum and dad think?” Sansa asks gently. “You wanted so badly to study, and –“

“Mum and dad lost the right to tell me what they think when they decided not to put chains on their tyres and ran off the road.”

Sansa’s breath is knocked from her lungs.

Rickon jumps off the ladder, throwing his roller into the pan, and he disappears out the room. She hears him open then slam the fridge door, and then the back door slide open and closed.

Sansa is struck still by the callousness with which Rickon had thrown such a statement out. She knows she was the one to bring them up, but - . . . but that’s different. What she said was different. Sansa is as familiar with the pain of their parents’ death as all her siblings are, but to be so bitter . . .

Sansa realises that she doesn’t really know Rickon, not truly. As it had for all of them, their parents’ abrupt death has obviously shifted and changed him as a person. No longer a young man that wants to study history, but instead someone who wants a more hands-on career. Sansa supposes she shouldn’t begrudge him that. She knows it’s not entirely true, that he doesn’t care what their parents might have thought, because he put aside all the money he’d inherited like their parents had asked in their will.

But her life didn’t turn out the way any of them had wanted, either. Who is Sansa to try and convince him otherwise? The sister that left before he was even a teenager? What relationship does she even have with him? And as enthusiastic as he had previously been about history, people change. Interests change. Perhaps he really, truly does want to do this instead.

Sansa may not be able to change what happened to their parents, or fix in her brother what was irreparably broken on that winter night, but she _can_ change her relationship with him.

Sansa makes her way out the back, getting two beers along the way, then takes a seat next to him on the stairs of the back porch.

“You know, mum, dad and I had the biggest fight when I told them I wanted to design clothes,” Sansa tells him after a few, quiet minutes. “It was all mixed up with my decision to go to King’s Landing with Joffrey, of course, but I know they were upset my career choice, too. Mum even came into my room that night and begged me to reconsider. Said that I had to go to a _proper_ university, get a real job. Like Robb.”

Rickon scoffs, and takes a swig of beer. “Who wants to be an accountant?” he mutters, sounding as bitter as she feels. All four of the younger siblings know what it’s like to grow up in the shadow of Robb, but she supposes that Arya, Bran and Rickon had to each contend with one more sibling than the last.

“It’s not my place to tell you that you can’t do something you want to do,” Sansa says. “It’s not anyone’s place, actually. If you want to do an apprenticeship, then you should. I made something from a degree no one thought I should do. Arya owns a _gym._ Bran studied philosophy. I think we’ve all each proven that you can be successful in your own way. Who knows, maybe one day you might own your business, like Jon.”

Rickon turns to her, a smug grin on his face. “Uh huh, anything to bring up the boy toy.”

She shoves his shoulder, rolling her eyes at him. “Seriously, Rickon. If you want to do it, then do it. Stop thinking about it and make it happen.”

He gives her a soft, gentle smile, a rare type that she’s not often gifted by . . . well by anyone but Jon, really.

“Thanks, San. And hey, the same goes to you, you know.”

She purses her lips at him, confused.

Rickon rolls his eyes, then clinks the neck of his beer bottle with hers. “With _Jon,_ silly. Stop thinking about it, and make it happen.”

Sansa blinks, startled. She _has_ made all sorts of excuses as to why she won’t confess to Jon her feelings, even though now she can be reasonably sure he reciprocates, at least in some capacity.

Gods, she knows why, too. She does.

The truth is, finding Jon has given Sansa something which she thought she lost. For so long, she’s felt like a ship without an anchor; a broken, battered ship that has been taking on water for a decade. Without even knowing it, Jon has given her the gift of allowing herself to dream again. He’s quietly supported her, has gently encouraged her, but has given her the space she needed to fix _herself._ He’s not taken on the responsibility of it, hasn’t made her tie her newfound determination to him.

What he’s done is made her see for herself that she is _worth_ it. She’s worth trying to help herself with therapy, she’s worth standing up for herself against her family, she’s worth speaking her truth when she’s hurt, and she’s worth being cared for when she needs it. Sansa Stark is _worth_ something, and it may have taken a long time for her to realise it, but now she’s starting to believe it.

And Jon has given her the courage to think it, just by being himself.

That means something, and she hasn’t wanted to mess it up by adding a whole new layer.

She wonders, quite suddenly, whether the two of them have been quietly waiting for the other to make a move. Sansa has certainly been waiting for Jon, but has he been waiting for _her?_

When Sansa says, “That’s good advice,” she feels breathless and lightheaded, and a little like her whole world just changed in the space of a minute. 

“Thanks, I just came up with it myself,” Rickon replies, smiling around the mouth of his bottle. “And it does work, you know. I spoke to Jojen, and –“

“Jojen?” Sansa interrupts, a smile slowly spreading across her face.

Rickon scowls at her. “Don’t,” he warns. “Or I’ll not tell you anything.”

Sansa mimes zipping her lips shut, and tries to squash her smile, she really does, but she knows it’s not working and Rickon keeps glaring at her, but the edge is taken off when his own smile breaks through.

“Turns out I was being ridiculous,” Rickon tells her finally. “And Jojen was, too. He also thought he was the only one to catch feels. But turns out he wasn’t, and we’re going on a date on Friday.”

Sansa rests her head on Rickon’s shoulder, rubbing his bicep fondly. “Good on you, Rickon. I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks, San,” Rickon replies, reaching around to pat her on the head.

She feels a bit like a dog with his big movements, and rolls her eyes and shoves his hand away.

“Alright, come on,” Sansa says, standing up, brushing her thoughts off because they’re just too much for a quiet Wednesday afternoon. “These walls won’t paint themselves. And I’m not paying you burgers and nuggets if it’s not done.”

“You drive a hard bargain, sis,” Rickson says, standing as well. “But I’d do anything for the nug, so lead the way.”

Sansa laughs, shaking her head fondly. “Careful now,” she teases, “or else I’ll rope you into a mountain of work for just a couple dollars.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He disappears into the kitchen, and Sansa is fairly sure she falls asleep for a second because suddenly she feels like she’s falling. She jerks back up and Jon is kneeling in front of her, a cup of water in one hand and a pill in the other, looking genuinely concerned.
> 
> “’m fine,” she promises, but then she sneezes.
> 
> Jon hands her a tissue, and Sansa thanks him miserably, thinking how awful this turn of events is. Just when she’d been ready to do something with him, this happens.
> 
> “Have this,” Jon instructs, holding his hand with the pill out and looking not at all fazed by the situation. 
> 
> Sansa obliges easily, ready for this torture to just be over, and Jon rewards her by swiping his thumb over her cheek, fingers brushing her jaw. She almost leans into him again, because it feels so nice to be touched with such gentleness and care. She doesn’t remember the last time someone took care of her when she was sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone's holidays are going well! I very much intend to update tomorrow for Christmas, but I'm not sure what time it will be. but be on the lookout bc I have a surprise for you all :)

Lyra ends up missing school on Thursday and Friday, too, which means that Jon stays home, as well; and that means that when Sansa shows up on Thursday morning to take Will to school, he’s wearing tracksuits and a soft sweater, glasses on and waiting for her with a cup of tea just the way she likes it.

Can he just . . . _stop_ being so fucking amazing?

It makes her have terrible, hopeful thoughts, like that she wants to push the tea from the counter so he can fuck her right there. Alas, they can’t exactly do that with Will and Lyra around. Still, Sansa hasn’t had second thoughts overnight. She’s not second guessed herself. She thinks that Lyra had made the situation fairly clear, unless Sansa has wildly misconstrued the situation.

Which is, admittedly, possible, because Lyra is only five and is quite the fairy tale dreamer. Sansa herself had been like that, so she knows better than most the way one can be misled by such ideas.

Despite Will’s refusal to go without Lyra on Wednesday, he’s thrown much less of a fuss on Thursday, and is ready to go soon after Sansa arrives. Habit is what drives Sansa to not tell Jon what she’d learned, but it’s for the best. Lyra is still sick, Sansa has to get Will to school, and they need time and space to discuss this all. She can’t just admit she’s in love with him, give him a quick kiss, and then walk out to go about her day.

The rest of the week passes without interruption, and Sansa finds herself with very little opportunity to talk to Jon.

She has ample opportunity to think the whole thing over and over and over, what with the fact that she’s always at home, alone, with little to distract her these days. The house is coming along well, and Sansa has finally been able to properly move into the master bedroom. Most of upstairs is finished, in fact, and she’s slowly moving furniture from the storage shed back into its rightful rooms. She’s very sure she’ll be able to have it completely finished by Christmas.

After that, Sansa has _no_ idea what she’s going to do. She’s been toying with the possibility of setting up her own store, but Sansa has always been more interested in the design aspect of clothes rather than the styling. She could start her own line, but Sansa just doesn’t know how feasible that is. She’s very sure that her name will have been ruined by Cersei, if not by the murder investigation, so she thinks that to start a business would not end well.

She’d hoped that she’d be able to use the time it took to fix the house to ponder on what she wants from her professional life in the future, but instead it’s been much more occupied with her personal life.

 _Is that such a bad thing,_ she wonders, curled up on the lounge and looking over the sketch she’d rendered of the kitchen. The kitchen is mostly done at this point, only the counters and splashback left to do, but she’s unsure about the splashback she’d initially chosen. She’d been thinking she was going to replace the small tiles with larger, darker ones, but now she’s wondering if she might splurge and set in a single piece of marble.

A window splashback would be the ideal, of course, but she’s not sure how she would even go about doing that, and she thinks it might be too late now.

She could probably ask Jon –

Her thoughts are interrupted with a sneeze. She blinks, then leans over to get a tissue and wipes her nose. She settles back into her seat, wondering if Jon would come ‘round to have a look at the kitchen.

When Sansa wakes on Monday morning, her throat burns.

 _I’m not getting sick,_ she tells herself, adding some honey and ginger to her morning tea.

On Tuesday, her bones ache, too, and she finds it difficult to breath. She sets a humidity diffuser up in the room that night, but when she wakes on Wednesday she can hardly open her eyes, her head is pounding, she definitely can’t breathe anymore, her throat feels like it’s on fire, and her entire body protests against her even getting up to find another box of tissues.

She blearily sets about making herself some tea, and brings her computer into her room to watch a couple movies, but she falls back asleep as soon as she’s finished her cup. Sansa wakes again a few hours later, feeling not in the least bit better, and proceeds to use half a box of tissues in an attempt to unblock her nose. She feels like absolute shit, and knows from experience that she’ll feel like this for a couple more days.

Sansa reaches for her phone blindly, almost knocking her glass of water off her bedside table in the process. She has to squint at the brightness of her phone, and she makes several mistakes in her text to Jon, but eventually she gets a coherent enough text that tells him she won’t be able to get the kids for the next couple days.

 _I think I’ve got what Lyra had :(_ she sends at the end. She drops the phone again, and snuggles back into her bed, hoping that when she wakes this will all be over.

It is not, in fact, over. It’s again only a few hours later that she wakes up, sometime in the evening, and it’s to the sound of her phone ringing.

“’ello?” she answers, voice thick with snot and sleep.

“Sans, hey, it’s Jon. I thought I’d return the favour, I’ve come ‘round with some soup and Dayquil. Or I guess you need some Nyquil now, but I have that, too. I wasn’t sure what you had, so I’ve probably doubled up –“

As he babbles, Sansa slides from her bed. She goes over to the sliding doors that leads to a small porch overlooking the road, and peeks through the curtains to see Jon’s Range Rover parked in her driveway. She smiles a little, and pulls on a robe, then slowly makes her way downstairs, using the rail to make sure she doesn’t fall over from how bleary her head feels.

She listens fondly as he rambles, thinking how adorable it is the amount of words he’s spilling right now. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him string so many words together in one go.

When she finally makes it to the front door, he’s still talking, interrupted only by the creak of the door opening.

He spins on the spot, smiling sheepishly at her as he ends the call.

Sansa drops her phone into her pocket as he holds up the bag he’s brought with him.

“I have supplies,” he says.

“Yes, you mentioned,” Sansa teases, but has to lean against the door frame because she’s so exhausted just from coming down the stairs. “Where are the kids?”

“They’re with Robb, I dropped them there on the way here. Can I come in?”

Sansa nods and moves aside for him, and wonders whether she has the energy to tackle going back _up_ the stairs.

“What have you already taken?” Jon asks as he puts his bag on the dining table.

Sansa sits down at one of the chairs, resting her head on her knuckles as she fights to keep her eyes open.

“Uhm. Tylenol. This morning, though. Nothing in a while.”

Jon gives her a worried glance, and then his knuckles are brushing against her cheek as he holds the back of his hand to her forehead. 

_That’s such a parent thing,_ Sansa thinks fondly, leaning into his touch. His hands are so nice and cold, and she feels so hot.

“Wait here,” he murmurs, but Sansa wouldn’t have moved anyway.

He disappears into the kitchen, and Sansa is fairly sure she falls asleep for a second because suddenly she feels like she’s falling. She jerks back up and Jon is kneeling in front of her, a cup of water in one hand and a pill in the other, looking genuinely concerned.

“’m fine,” she promises, but then she sneezes.

Jon hands her a tissue, and Sansa thanks him miserably, thinking how awful this turn of events is. Just when she’d been ready to do something with him, this happens.

“Have this,” Jon instructs, holding his hand with the pill out and looking not at all fazed by the situation. 

Sansa obliges easily, ready for this torture to just be over, and Jon rewards her by swiping his thumb over her cheek, fingers brushing her jaw. She almost leans into him again, because it feels so _nice_ to be touched with such gentleness and care. She doesn’t remember the last time someone took care of her when she was sick.

Jon’s hands disappear as quickly as they came, and Sansa only just holds back her sigh of disappointment.

“Come on, back up to bed,” Jon murmurs.

Sansa puts her cup down and stands. She sways on her feet, feeling a rush of dizziness, and suddenly one of Jon’s hands is on her shoulder and the other is on her waist and oh dear gods, how good she feels is all mixed up with how _terrible_ she feels -

“You alright?” Jon asks with concern, moving his hand from her shoulder to cup her cheek.

“Yeah, just a bit dizzy,” she mutters.

She’s pretty sure she’s now dizzy from how good to feels to be under his touch rather than the sickness, but if Jon keeps holding her like this then she doesn’t really care why.

When he drops his hands to gently take her elbow and lead up her upstairs, she can’t help but feel a little disappointed. Once they’re back in her room, Sansa drops her robe and snuggles back into bed. Jon drags her blankets up over her, and Sansa can’t help but sigh with contentment.

“Stay with me?” she murmurs, eyes fluttering with exhaustion.

Jon brushes his hand over her face again, and Sansa vaguely thinks she might actually have _purred_ as he did.

“Yeah, I can stay a bit,” he replies quietly. The bed dips beside her as he sits down, and Sansa blinks her eyes open to frown up at him.

“Lay down,” she says, nudging her chin towards the empty side of the bed.

He rolls his eyes at her tone, but gives her a small smile and toes his shoes off. Sansa watches as he winds around to the other side of the bed and lays on top of the covers.

“You should get some sleep,” Jon says, tucking his hands underneath his cheek as he faces her.

“’m tired,” she agrees. And then, because she’s feeling recklessly bold from the high of his gentle touch, she says, “come closer.”

He hesitates for a long moment, then clears his throat. “I better not,” he says. Sansa peeks through one eye to see him biting the inside of his cheek. 

“Why?” she asks. If she weren’t so drowsy from being sick, she’s very sure she’d never have the guts to push.

“Don’t wanna get sick,” he mumbles, but turns his head away to look at the ceiling.

Under usual circumstances, Sansa would back off. His gentle decline of her request would be enough to persuade her to leave it be. But this isn’t the usual circumstances, and Sansa is just drowsy enough, just sick enough, to take what she wants.

More boldly than she has any right to be, Sansa turns so her back is to him and then wiggles until her back is pressed to his chest.

“There,” she mumbles, snuggling her head into the pillow as he exhales loudly behind her, “now I’m not breathing on you, you won’t get sick.”

Jon clears his throat, and when his hand hesitantly comes to rest against her waist, Sansa melts into him. It emboldens him, obviously, because his hand slides further around to press against her stomach.

Sansa hums and presses into him a bit more, so her back is lined completely against his chest. Jon slides his other arm underneath her head, and Sansa smiles a little, extremely pleased.

“This is nice,” she whispers. She’ll be mortified about it in the morning, but for now she just lets herself get washed away on the giddiness of this moment.

“Yeah,” he agrees, voice raw, as his fingers tighten in the blanket over her stomach, “it is.”

Sansa is desperately tired, but she tries to stay awake so she can linger in his arms and remember the way it feels to be so safe.

“You like my sheets?” Sansa asks, anything to keep herself awake.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, chest rumbling in a way that Sansa feels in her bones. “The pink looks good.”

She loves this, so much, too much. She – she loves _him._ It’s so thoughtful, for him to have come. To bring her medicine, to take care of her, to hold her like this. She wants it for the rest of her life. She wants the good, the bad, in sickness and in health, she wants to wake up and kiss him in the morning and she wants to make love to him in the night, she wants to be a part of Will and Lyra’s life and watch them grow up. She wants everything he’s willing to offer her.

Is he as gone as she is?

“Hey, Jon?” Sansa murmurs, disrupting their sweet peace.

“Yeah Sans?”

“Are you going to go on any of those dates Robb sets you up on?”

Jon stills behind her, completely rigid.

That hadn’t been what she was going to ask. Well, she’s not sure _what_ she was going to ask, but that question seems a bit too much. She definitely didn’t think it through. What if he says no? Gods, what if he says _yes?_ It’s truly about the most twisted way she could have asked whether he’s ready to date.

“No,” he replies finally, taking a deep breath. Sansa breathes in tandem with him.

It’s a relief, in a way, because at least she knows he isn’t looking at other women. But is he looking at _her?_

“Okay. Good.”

Sansa thinks she might hear him groan, just a little, and then his hand tightens around her waist as his breath suddenly feels much closer against the back of her neck.

“And you?” he murmurs. Sansa’s hands clench beneath the sheets, away from his keen eyes, as his voice makes her stomach flip. “Have you . . . are you seeing anyone?”

When the question is turned back around to her, Sansa feels much less brave. “No,” she admits quietly. But being bold has worked well for her so far tonight, so to test the waters she says, “But I have my eye on someone. He’s brave and gentle and strong.”

Jon’s fist releases the blanket around her stomach. “Oh,” he mumbles, moving away from her, just slightly. But they’d been close enough that she can notice the difference. “Well, there must be something wrong with him, if he can’t see how amazing you are.”

“Yeah,” Sansa murmurs, her stomach sinking, feeling very much like he’s given _nothing_ away; like she’s actually just more confused now than she was before. “There must be.”

Jon isn’t the best at hiding his feelings, he never has been. Especially when it comes to the people who know him the most.

He tries to hide them, of course, particularly around his kids, because he doesn’t need to burden them with that.

But Lyra has always been a bit too smart for her own good.

On Friday night, when he’s tucking her into bed after their movie is over, she says, “Daddy, why are you upset?”

“I’m not upset, pumpkin,” he responds, smoothing her hair back. “We had a great night, didn’t we?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t play coy,” she says, sniffing her nose. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“Alright, enough with the attitude,” Jon says, tweaking her chin, and then he sits on the bed beside her. “Why do you think I’m upset?”

Lyra goes quiet for a moment, looking up at him with her intelligent eyes.

“You’ve been very quiet the past few days,” she tells him. “And you’ve let me push the boundaries too much. I mean, really dad? McDonalds on a _Thursday?”_

Jon winces. Lyra is too smart for him, she truly is. It’s exhausting, and he dreads the circles she will be able to run around him when she gets older.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he says, running his hand up and down her leg. “Okay?”

Lyra bites her lip. “Is it because of Sansa?”

“Baby, please, I really don’t want you to worry about me,” he pleads. “My job is to worry about _you,_ to take care of you.”

“Why can’t we take care of each other?” she asks, pouting.

“Because it isn’t your responsibility to take care of your dad,” he replies. “I’d be a pretty bad dad if I let you worry about me. You don’t need to be burdened with my troubles.”

“So you _are_ troubled,” Lyra surmises. “I knew it. What happened? Did you ruin it with Sansa? I _told_ you we needed to talk about it!”

“Sansa isn’t interested, pumpkin,” Jon replies, and then shakes his head, mad at himself for so easily getting engaged. He’s mulled over what Sansa said the other day quite considerably, and has come to the conclusion that she couldn’t have been talking about him. Not only is he none of the things she listed, but _she_ is so far out of his league it’s laughable. She must have been talking about someone else. He doesn’t know why he ever thought he might stand a chance with a woman as amazing and beautiful and strong and driven as she. “It’s time for sleep now, alright.”

Lyra scoffs. “Well that’s not true! She told me that she was last week!”

Jon suddenly feels like he’s falling and flying all at once.

“What do you mean?” he whispers, fingers tightening at the knee of his jeans. “She told you what last week, Lyra?”

She clamps her mouth shut all of her sudden, her eyes wide as she snuggles into her blankets. “Nothing!” she squeaks.

“Lyra,” he repeats, a strange edge to his voice. “Tell me, please?”

“You’ll be mad!” she says, hiding under the covers now.

“I won’t be mad,” he promises, and knows that he’ll have to keep it, no matter what she says. 

Lyra peeks one eye out from under her blanket. “I told her a secret that I wasn’t supposed to,” Lyra confesses.

Oh. _Oh_ gods. He thinks he understands.

Still he says, just to be sure, so he doesn’t run into the situation without all the information, “What secret?”

When she detects no anger or frustration in his voice, she pokes her other eye out, looking up at him and obviously deciding what to do.

“I was sick, I didn’t know what I was saying,” Lyra rushes to say. He raises a brow at her. “But I might have told her that you said you liked her. And I asked if she was interested in dating. And then I asked if she’d date _you._ And she said she would. And I just think you’re being rather ridiculous about this whole thing, frankly, because I’m _five_ and even I know you’re taking _way_ too long.”

Jon is . . . Jon doesn’t know what he is. He feels restless and at peace all at once, like he has to see Sansa immediately but also like she feels inevitable. It’s a strange feeling, something he’s never felt before, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He stands up, thinking about the phone in his pocket, and Lyra shoves the blanket from her face.

“Am I in trouble?” she asks.

Well. He did promise she wouldn’t be, but he’s still a little upset that she’d gone against what he’d asked and told Sansa – well, honestly, she’s kind of exaggerated to Sansa what Jon had confessed to Lyra that night, but that’s fine because it’s _true._

“No,” he replies. “But we _are_ going to have a discussion about going against my wishes. _Again._ ”

“Yes, daddy,” she sighs, pouting again. She brings the blanket back up to her chin, and turns on her side to snuggle into her pillow. “Tomorrow?”

“Later,” he replies, because honestly he doesn’t know if he’ll get to it tomorrow and he tries to not make promises he can’t keep with Lyra.

He leaves her room and goes into his own, pulling his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and staring at it as he stands in the middle of his room.

Should he call her? She’s probably still sick, and he shouldn’t ambush her while she’s still recovering. Gods, but he so desperately wants to. He wants to talk to her, to tell her how he feels, wants to _see_ her more than anything.

 _Nope, still sick,_ he reminds himself, then groans and falls face first onto his bed.

This whole week has been so fucking awful, especially straight after how shitty last week was. Seeing Sansa so sick had stirred something fiercely protective in Jon, something borne from the fear created by Ygritte’s death. Even though he shouldn’t have let himself hold Sansa like he did, he truly couldn’t help but stay much later than he’d said he was going to. She’d fallen asleep in his arms not too long after their conversation, but Jon had stayed for almost another hour after that, periodically checking to make sure she was still breathing and that everything was fine.

And then when he’d quietly left, he’d been unable to get a grip on his emotions and had had . . . a _small_ meltdown in the car. He’s since decided he needs to take a page from Sansa’s book and start therapy sometime soon.

In any case, his hopeless pining has only been made all the more tragic since he realised he’s in love with her.

He feels like a fucking teenager. All this pining and pent up feelings are not what a grown man should be doing. Sansa deserves someone who can just tell her the fucking truth and _worship_ her. But he’s not just some random grown man, is he? He has kids, kids who have had a fairly traumatic past with their mother, and she’s a divorcee with an awful past, and he has _reasons_ for taking his time.

They seem so insignificant and yet impassable in this moment.

Jon hears a creak behind him, and lifts his head to see Will standing in his doorway, dragging a teddy in one hand and clutching a book to his chest in the other.

“Daddy?” Will calls, eyes big and wide.

 _Fuck,_ Jon hadn’t gone in after Lyra.

“Come in, baby,” Jon replies, sitting up and patting the bed. “You wanna sleep in here with me tonight?”

Will gasps in delight and crawls up on the bed, abandoning the teddy and book in the centre of the bed in favour of diving under the covers and finding a good spot.

“IS WILL SLEEPING IN YOUR BED?” Lyra shouts from her room.

Jon chuckles, picking up Will’s things as he stands.

“You wanna come in too?” Jon calls out to her, but she’s already standing in the doorway.

Lyra jumps onto the bed, she and Will giggling in delight as they find themselves a spot in his bed.

Jon shakes his head fondly and puts the book and teddy on the bedside table.

“Alright, get comfortable you two,” Jon says, leaning down to kiss both of their heads. “I’m going to have a shower and be back soon.”

By the time he gets out, Will and Lyra are fast asleep, somehow both sprawled out and tangled together. Gods he fucking loves them so much. They’re like – they’re all the good things in the world, wrapped up into two little people that he gets to hold in his arms. Imagine that? All the best things that exist in the universe, and they’re in his bed. 

Jon looks at his phone one last time, wondering again if he should call Sansa, but decides against it when Will lets out a big snore and shifts in bed.

No, not with his kids around. He needs to find the right time.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jon?” she questions, opening the door a bit wider once she sees it’s just him. “What are you doing here?”
> 
> “Sansa,” he whispers, the sight of her having knocked the breath from him. Gods he hopes he’s right about this. “Sansa, I –“
> 
> Words fail him, as they so often do.
> 
> He takes a step towards her, then another. She stays put, watching him approach. Her mouth parts slightly, and his gaze drops to it.
> 
> “The other day, when you were sick, and you said –“ He pauses for a moment to catch his breath, entirely too overcome that this is finally happening. Sansa rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, and Jon is entirely sure that it’s a nervous gesture – but holy fuck, he so wants to do that himself. The thought spurs him to continue on. “When you were sick, and said you had your eye on someone - . . . Were you talking about me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE
> 
> I promise I’m going to get to replying to all your comments from the last couple chapters!

A day passes, and then two, and suddenly a whole week has gone and it’s the weekend after.

Sansa had cancelled sitting again, saying she was still feeling pretty sick. Jon hasn’t spoken with her outside of those texts, because he’s fairly sure that if he does he’s going to spill every last thought in his head, and he refuses to do it over the phone.

He’s just trying to hang out until she feels better. Just . . . just a little longer. He knows he’s been stalling for the better part of six months, he knows how much time he’s wanted her and refused to do anything, but going one more week without telling her feels unbearable.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, baby?” Jon tears his eyes from the email he’s writing on his laptop at the kitchen counter, turning to face Lyra who is clutching a book to her chest.

“Can you please call Yaya and ask if she’ll bring me the next in the series?”

She holds the book out, a pair of sword fighters on the cover, and Jon takes it from her to put it on the kitchen tabletop. 

“I’ll ask if she can bring it next time she’s ‘round,” Jon agrees.

“Can you ask her now?”

He’s been meaning to call her anyway, actually, because he’s organised to finish work early on Monday so he can go get the kids from their little class Christmas party.

“You go and tidy up your room and I’ll call Arya.”

Lyra races up the stairs to do as instructed, the most eager for that job as he’s seen her in a while.

Jon presses his phone between his shoulder and ear, leaning down to his computer to quickly read over the email. It’s littered with errors, a product of his stressed and wandering thoughts, no doubt.

“Yo Jonny boy, I gotta call ya back, I’m just finishing a session with Sansa.”

Jon’s heart stops and he straightens from the counter. “You’re with Sansa? She’s not sick anymore?”

“Uh, no, she’s been fine for a few days now. Hey, she’s glaring at me, I’ve gotta go, I’ll call you back!”

Arya hangs up on him as abruptly as she’d answered, leaving Jon staring at his phone, an absolute mess.

She’s not sick anymore? Why didn’t she tell him?

She’s obviously been ignoring him. _Why?_ It’s probably not a good sign, and a week ago it would have been enough to deter him from his plan but – gods, _fuck,_ he has to know how she feels about him. He just can’t take this any longer. He’s felt like he needs to rip his hair out all week from how impatient he’s felt, and he can’t go another day like this.

Something, some _one,_ was always going to break eventually. Looks like it’s going to be him.

Jon slams his laptop closed and jumps up the stairs so he can get dressed, having been in his pyjamas with the kids all day, the snow making them all snuggle up together.

He pulls on a pair of jeans and a black shirt, throwing his jacket on the bed to grab as he leaves.

“Lyra, Arya’s gonna come ‘round this evening!” Jon calls out to her. Oh, wait, he hadn’t actually confirmed that, _shit,_ he needs to calm down.

“Yaya!” Lyra crows, appearing in his doorway right as his phone starts to ring, Arya’s face popping up on the screen. “She’s bringing my book?”

“Out please, baby,” Jon instructs. “I need to talk to Arya for a second.”

Lyra goes back into her room, and Jon shuts the door behind her, answering his phone as he does.

“Arya, can you take the kids for the evening?” Jon rushes to say, before she’s even greeted him.

“Whoa, calm down there, dude,” she says. “Uh, yeah, I can take them. Want me to come ‘round?”

“Aye, as soon as you can.”

“What’s the rush there?” she asks, sounding highly amused. He hears her car start, and thinks she must be leaving the gym for the day.

“I’m going to go tell Sansa I’m in love with her.”

He probably should have waited to tell Sansa that, he thinks she should have been the first one to hear the words, but the _relief_ that comes along with saying them out loud makes Jon’s shoulders feel a few kilos lighter.

Arya doesn’t say anything for a few long, tense moments, and Jon remembers, suddenly, that one of the reasons he’d been avoiding telling Sansa was because of her siblings.

Okay, he _really_ needs to calm down. This impulsivity had marked his adolescence, but it’s been a long time since he had this much trouble keeping his thoughts in his head.

“Well,” she says finally, “’bout time one of you two did something about it.”

Jon breathes out in relief, tugging his hand through his curls.

“She’s just left, right?” he checks. “On her way home?”

“Yep,” Arya responds with a chuckle. “She’ll be home and showered by the time you get there. You’ll get to catch her in her jimmy jams, Snow.”

Jon tries to catch the groan in his throat, but when Arya laughs he knows he didn’t succeed, not at all.

He’s had fucking _daydreams_ about those cute pyjamas Sansa was wearing the other day, when she dropped her robe in front of him and then snuggled into his arms.

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” Arya promises. “Try and keep it together until then.”

Jon throws his phone on his bed when she hangs up, feeling pent up with impatience and agitation. He’s waited this long, another half an hour means nothing, but dear gods Jon feels like he might be about to die.

Time moves about as slow as it ever has, and when Arya arrives Jon is ready to go.

Lyra asks a thousand times where he’s going, but he doesn’t want to get her hopes up so he avoids answering. She eventually gets it out of him that he’s going to see a ‘friend’, and the big smile and thumbs up she gives him makes Jon feel slightly more relaxed. And also like he’s _way_ too transparent. Will sits on the couch, thumbing through his picture book when Arya arrives, and Jon gives both his kids a kiss on the cheek as he rushes out.

“I’ll keep you updated,” Jon promises Arya as he slides into his car.

Arya wrinkles her nose. “Please don’t.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “On when I’ll be _home.”_

“Oh. Well, in that case, have a good time. But not _too_ good. No, fuck, show my sister a great time, Mr Snow!”

Jon doesn’t deign that a reply – because of fucking _course_ he’s going to show her a good time – and peels out of the driveway. His fingers drum against the steering wheel the entire time, and Jon resolutely does not let any second doubts make their way into his mind.

He’s been doing that for too long. Enough is enough.

When he arrives, Jon pulls into her driveway, then takes the stairs onto her landing two at a time. He pounds against her door a few times, and then he has to wait.

Sansa opens the door with a confused frown, hair loose and messy around her shoulders, and wearing silk pyjamas and that fluffy robe undone around her waist. The warm air from inside her house rushes out to greet him, and holy shit the red that it’s given her cheeks is about the most tantalising thing he’s ever seen.

“Jon?” she questions, opening the door a bit wider once she sees it’s just him. “What are you doing here?”

“Sansa,” he whispers, the sight of her having knocked the breath from him. Gods he hopes he’s right about this. “Sansa, I –“

Words fail him, as they so often do.

He takes a step towards her, then another. She stays put, watching him approach. Her mouth parts slightly, and his gaze drops to it.

“The other day, when you were sick, and you said –“ He pauses for a moment to catch his breath, entirely too overcome that this is finally happening. Sansa rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, and Jon is entirely sure that it’s a nervous gesture – but holy fuck, he so wants to do that himself. The thought spurs him to continue on. “When you were sick, and said you had your eye on someone - . . . Were you talking about me?”

Her eyes widen, just slightly, and she bites down harder on her lip, knuckles going white against the door.

Her mouth opens and closes a few times, and just when Jon starts to feel like he’d been wrong, like everyone had misread the situation and like he’s just been projecting his own desires onto her; just when he thinks that he needs to leave before he hears her confirm the worst; she whispers only one word.

“Yes.”

Jon reaches out for her, palms cupping her jaw as his thumbs graze over her cheeks. Her breathing stutters, and Jon reminds himself to calm down, to _slow_ down.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he says quietly, voice hoarse. “That alright?”

He’s so close to her now her eyelids flutter, and just a tiny bit further and he could press his forehead to hers, could nudge their noses together, but he can’t overwhelm her. Not until he knows.

“ _Gods_ yes.”

As soon as Jon captures Sansa’s mouth with his, he knows that he’s going to spend the rest of his life with her. There is no one else for him.

She’s soft and pliable under his attention, but eager, too, more eager than he expected her to be, and when he nips her bottom lip like he wanted to only moments before, she gasps into his mouth.

Oh gods, oh _fuck,_ he’s going to make her sound like that all night long.

But first –

“I’m in love with you,” he blurts, parting from her only long enough to confess it.

Sansa keens against him, breaking their mouths so she can gasp, “Gods, I love you too, Jon.”

Jon takes her mouth again, kissing her senselessly and relentlessly like he plans to do for hours. Relief makes his skin tingle and burn.

“Were you avoiding me this week?” he murmurs against her lips, his words muffled; but he can’t bear to part his mouth from hers long enough to ask the question properly.

“Yes,” she confesses as she nips his bottom lip, exploring him just as greedily as he’s exploring her, one arm slung around his neck. “I thought I’d made it so clear I meant you the other day.”

Jon groans as her fingers tighten in his shirt, her nails scraping against his stomach in the process.

“And then you didn’t make a move, so I figured you weren’t interested, and I just – I couldn’t bear to see you and know you didn’t feel the same way.”

Fuck, he hates that he ever made her feel that way. Like he didn’t want her, desire her, wish to cherish her and spend the rest of his life with her.

Jon buries his hands in her beautiful red hair, the hair that he’s spent hours pondering over and waxing fucking poetic about in his head, and when he licks into her mouth he knows, deep in his gut, that she’s forever.

“I love you,” he rasps against her jaw, because he wants to and he _can_ and she deserves to hear it every second of every day.

Sansa groans and backs them both inside the door, slamming it closed behind them. Jon presses her up against the door, hands dipping into her robe to settle on her waist.

“This okay?” he questions as her head falls back into the door. He lowers his head to suck at her neck, nipping at the delicate skin there with the intention of marking her.

“More,” she keens, knocking her head back again. “Gods, Jon, _more.”_

Jon is _more_ than happy to oblige, and he slides a jean-clad knee between her legs, rolling her hips over his thigh.

“Oh, _oh,”_ Sansa whines, fingers raking into his curls and tugging harshly.

It emboldens him, and Jon runs his hands up her sides so he can tug down the front of her camisole. Her breasts are revealed to him, making his mouth practically water with the desire to lick and suck at them, and he glances quickly at her face to make sure this is okay, but her eyes are closed and her head is thrown back so Jon bends his head down to take a nipple in his mouth because she wants this, too. 

“Gods, I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you,” Jon reveals against her skin in the time it takes him to switch to her other breast.

“I have, too,” she confesses, rocking her body against his. “So fucking much. I thought I was going mad with how much I wanted you.”

Jon eagerly kisses her again, cupping her jaw and tilting her head so he can slide his tongue up the centre of hers. He gathers her hair in his hands, the red of it bunched in his palms against the nape of her neck, and it’s as soft as he imagined it would be.

Sansa works her fingers under the hem of his shirt, fingers raking over his stomach. His muscles tighten under her touch instantly, and he groans when she digs her nails in slightly. The jacket he’s wearing falls to the floor and he reaches up to pull his shirt over his head. The robe she’s wearing joins his discarded clothes, and then he’s kissing her again, unable to get enough of the intoxicating taste of her.

Jon releases her hair to palm at her breast and she grinds down on his leg impatiently, her fingers tugging against the skin of his shoulders. A groan spills from his eager mouth and his hands wander to her back, slipping below the band of her pants so he can dig his fingers into the soft flesh of her arse.

“You make me so crazy,” Jon mutters, guiding her hips to rock against his leg. “I would fuck you right here, against the door, if you’d let me. I need you so fucking much, Sans.” 

Sansa tugs against the buckle of his belt, fingers undoing it deftly.

“Put your money where your mouth is, Snow,” Sansa whispers against his mouth. “Fuck me here.” 

Jon needs no further encouragement. He drops to his knees, dipping his fingers beneath the silk of her waistband. Sansa tilts her hips so he can pull her pants down, and Jon’s head falls forward to press against her knee when he sees she’s wearing nothing underneath. She’s going to be the death of him, he can tell.

Jon nips her thigh, loving the way her breath hitches. He works his way up and up, kissing and nosing at her thigh until she’s panting above him.

“Gods, I’m going to feast on your cunt for hours,” Jon groans, fingers digging into her thighs.

“Later,” she gasps. “Gods, Jon, I just want you to fuck me, _please.”_

Still, he can’t help but dip his tongue between her folds for a quick swipe, then a second, and the little gasps she lets out makes him suddenly feel much less like he needs to get up off his knees to fuck her and more like this place is his, now, he’s never getting up because he’s never going to stop.

“Up, up,” she urges, hands curling around his neck to guide him into standing again. He regretful does as she bids, but promises himself that he’s going to get back to that as soon as possible.

Sansa’s hands are just as frantic as his as she gets his jeans undone, and suddenly they’re down around his knees.

Jon hitches Sansa up into his arms, hands tight around her legs. He’s lined up against her, and with one thrust he’ll _finally_ get to be inside, but before he does he needs to kiss her again.

Despite how frantic they’ve been until now, when he kisses her this time, Jon takes a bit more time, exploring her a bit more thoroughly, satiating his heart as well as his body.

When he finally slides into her, Sansa’s fingers dig into his shoulder blades so hard it hurts. Her breath is ragged and erratic against his jaw, and his groan is matched with her whimpered, “Oh, _fuck.”_

His head hits the door beside her head as he takes a second to compose himself, sure that if he doesn’t he’ll spill in about two seconds. She’s so hot around him, so tight, and Jon has never felt something so amazing in his life. This is the sweetest torture he’s ever known, being buried inside her but not moving.

Sansa doesn’t know the same compunction as he does, and rolls her hips.

“Fuck, Sans, you feel so good,” he mutters, lowering his head slightly so he can gently bite her shoulder, teeth scraping against her skin. “So good, so fucking wet, you’re better than I imagined.”

“What else did you imagine?” Sansa encourages, breathless.

Jon snaps his hips up, and her back rides up the door.

“Tell me, Jon,” Sansa instructs, raking her nails across his shoulders as he finds a pace for them. “Is this – _oh,_ oh – this what you imagined for our first time? _Yes,_ yes, like that, _please.”_

Jon grunts, hitching her up slightly higher so he can set his feet slightly further apart and fuck into her faster.

“No,” he admits, taking her earlobe into his mouth. He rolls it between his teeth, then traces the outline of it with his tongue, making a groan rip from her throat. “I thought I’d have more – oh, _shit_ \- restraint than this.”

“I love that you don’t,” Sansa gasps. She cups his face between her hands then, bringing him in for a fierce kiss as he slows slightly. “I love that you wanted me so much you couldn’t wait.”

“I couldn’t,” he admits, his breath fast against her cheek. “Gods, Sans, I couldn’t, not anymore, I need you, I need you so much, gods, sweetheart, I need you to come for me. Touch yourself, make yourself come.”

He’d do it himself, of course, but he’s too busy keeping her pressed into the door so he can fuck her so hard it rattles in its hinges.

Sansa snakes her hand between them, fingers rubbing circles around her clit in time to his thrusts. Her head falls back against the door as her gasps get caught in her throat, making the most delicious sounds in the process. Jon can feel himself losing whatever control he had, and gods he wanted to make their first time better than this, he’d had elaborate pictures of hovering over her and kissing her slowly and gently, making her fall apart under his hands and mouth multiple times before he ever slid inside her, but dear gods he let his patience run too thin.

His fingers pull and drag against the skin of her thighs, praise and encouragements spilling from his lips so quickly and thoroughly that all his words are a blur; he has no idea what he says to her, he only knows how much he loves her, loves this moment, and the enthusiastic response she has.

Sansa gasps his name as she comes, chanting it like a broken prayer and dragging him to Heaven and back in the process. His own climax is punctuated by sharp groans and erratic thrusts, and when he’s spilled deep inside her he sags against her, his body holding hers in place against the wall.

For a long minute, he has no words, can barely open his eyes from the bliss of the whole thing, panting heavily against her skin and his brow slick with sweat. Sansa wiggles between he and the door and he gently sets her down, sliding out of her in process.

She looks thoroughly debauched, her breasts sitting out of the neck of her camisole, her hair mussed and her lips swollen from his kiss. She seems as dazed as he feels, panting the same as him.

“That was . . .”

Jon realises, suddenly, that this is not at _all_ what he wanted. What he should have given her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, frowning slightly, smoothing his fingers over her waist. “I wanted to give you more than that.”

“More than what?” she questions, perplexed. Her palms curve around his hips, pulling him closer to her so that their chests are pressed tightly together. “Jon, that was the best sex of my _life.”_

That pleases him, immeasurably so, because he wants to be Sansa’s best everything.

But he can do better, he knows he can. Much, _much_ better. And she deserves better, gods she does. He made her come _once._ He’s never known a woman to be satisfied with so little, and he wouldn’t want to her be.

“Besides, I think I encouraged you more than little,” she says, and suddenly she looks shy, which is so different to the enthusiastic response she’d been having up until now that he lifts one hand to brush it over her cheek.

Honestly, though, he is a little surprised at her easy acquiescence to such uncontrolled sex. At her, as she says, encouragement. He would certainly have thought she’d at least want a flat surface, and then thought it would be something more gentle, more akin to love making.

He’s ecstatic with where this went, because he’s about ninety eight percent sure that was the best sex of his life, too, but . . .

“We probably both waited a little too long for this,” Sansa ponders, fingers tapping over his hips. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so frustrated in my life.” 

Oh, he adores this level of honesty from her. They’ve been getting good at sharing their truths with each other, whether that be in the form of discontents or nice things that happened to them during the day or things that happened to them in the past, but it’s like whatever that last thing that was holding her back has disappeared.

In any case, whatever the reason for such a frenzy from them both, Jon just can’t believe he finally gets this moment.

Jon catches her lips again, a soft, gentle kiss, the edge of his tongue sliding against her bottom lip. Her fingers tighten in the curls at his neck, sighing sweetly into his mouth.

“I love you,” he whispers when he pulls from her, nudging his nose against hers.

“I love you too,” she replies, a heart-warmingly large grin on her face.

Jon doesn’t remember the last time he felt such bone-deep satisfaction.

“Bedroom?” he asks, because he plans to spend hours making up for the fact he couldn’t even get her into a bed before he lost his restraint. 

She smiles, a cheeky little thing, and says, “I believe you know the way.”

Jon pulls his jeans up around his hips, leaving them unzipped and the belt undone, but when Sansa reaches down to get her own pants, he grabs them before she can.

“There’ll be no need for these,” he tuts, holding them behind his back. “Get your cute little arse upstairs, sweetheart. I’m not done with you yet.”

Jon does, in fact, spend hours worshipping her cunt later, and thinks that he more than makes up for his blind desire earlier in the evening.

When Jon gets her onto her bed, he rests his knee between her legs and makes her fall apart with his mouth, and then his mouth and fingers, and then while he makes love to her, the moonlight spilling over them as he holds her hand and whispers his adoration into her mouth.

After that, they go downstairs to eat, and while a frozen meal is defrosting in the microwave, Jon whispers into her ear that he thinks he can make her come before the microwave finishes, and so he lays her down on the bench and does as he promised. It’s after that orgasm that Sansa says she can’t handle any more, and while Jon thinks that she probably could, he decides it’s best not to push her for now.

When they’re done eating, Sansa leads him back up to her bed, and wraps herself around him while sighing with contentment.

“I wish we’d done this sooner,” she murmurs, fingers splayed across his chest. “If I’d known . . .”

He catches her hand in his and presses gentle kisses to each fingertip. “If _I’d_ known,” he counters. “But I didn’t want to ask if you were ready for a new relationship, especially after you told me about . . .”

Sansa bites her lip, then leans forward to bestow a soft kiss to his lips. Jon runs his fingers up her side and over her back, determined to memorise each line and curve of her soft body.

“I didn’t want to ask you, either,” she admits. “Even though I was glad your date with Val went badly, it almost felt like confirmation that you didn’t want to date.”

“I didn’t want to date anyone _else_ ,” he corrects, “only you.”

Sansa’s answering smile lights up her face, and when she kisses him this time Jon thinks she might have changed her mind about letting him touch her – gods, he so wants to touch her –

But she hasn’t said she’s changed her mind, so he reluctantly pulls away for more gentle apologies.

“I truly didn’t want our first time to be like that,” he says, because he wants to be clear. “I wanted it to be gentle. I wanted to worship you.”

“I liked that you had so little restraint,” Sansa confesses, her hand splayed over his chest. “It made me feel desired. Like you just couldn’t wait one more second.”

“I couldn’t.”

“I’ve never felt like that before,” she says quietly. “I’ve never – he and I didn’t . . . well, there was always someone prettier, someone sexier. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he didn’t want to have sex more, but it’s always made me feel like I was undesirable.”

Jon shifts his head so he can look in her eyes, so she _knows_ he’s serious.

“Sansa,” he says, and the way she looks up at him tells him she knows that what he’s about to say is the truth. “I can’t even count on both hands the amount of times in _one week_ I’ve wanted nothing more than to have you.”

“That can’t be true,” she replies doubtfully.

His brow furrows, perplexed.

“I didn’t even _see_ you before this today and I wanted you so much that I’m going to have to rewrite an email,” he tells her. Her eyes light up as she tries to hide her laugh, so Jon pulls her by the waist closer to him. “I’m serious.”

“Yes,” Sansa says slowly, her voice dropped lower as she drags her fingers down his chest, “yes, I know.”

“Shit, Sansa –“

She chuckles at his ragged gasp, and removes her hand, snuggling into his chest again. “Sorry,” she says, rather gleefully in his opinion.

Jon pulls her tighter against him, just happy that this moment has finally come.

“Hey, Jon?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you gonna tell the kids?”

Jon runs his fingers up her spine while he takes a moment to gather his thoughts. He hadn’t exactly given it a huge amount of thought today, but he’s thought about it enough in the past to know the answer.

“I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” he answers. “I’ll tell them that you’re my partner. Or, well, girlfriend, I think they’ll understand that better. That okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, reaching up to gift him another kiss. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

“And . . .” He pauses, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. He needs to word this right. He’s given _this_ a lot of thought, too. “And I think that I should get another sitter to replace the days you get the kids from school.”

Sansa pulls back from him, brows pulled up in surprise, but he doesn’t let her go too far, catching her around the waist and rushing to say, “I just think it’s a good idea to set some boundaries. So that they don’t get overwhelmed and you’re not having to take on being their mother –“

He winces, but Sansa doesn’t say anything, just looking up at him with curious eyes.

“Not that – not that you’d be bad at it, I think you’d be a great mum, but I don’t want you to feel pressured or for them to think it’s too much –“

Sansa chuckles quietly, and presses her palm over his mouth. Jon is relieved that she does, because that was way more than he’d intended to say.

“I know what you’re trying to say, Jon,” she says, smiling at him with amusement. “And if you think it’s for the best, then I agree.”

She pulls her hand from his mouth and he looks at her warily.

“I don’t want you think that I don’t think you’re doing a good job,” Jon says cautiously. “It’s just because I think we could all benefit from the boundaries.”

“It’s true.”

“You don’t have to say you agree if you don’t, Sans. I want us to work these things out together.”

Her smile crinkles her eyes and she surges towards him. His surprised grunt is muffled by her fierce kiss, and she rolls them over, straddling his waist and digging her fingers into his cheeks.

“Thanks for saying that,” she whispers, breaking away from his mouth. He’s slightly dazed, hands resting her thighs, and he blinks up at her to try and clear his head. “But I really do agree. I actually . . . well, I was talking to Bran about how I wanted to start a fashion line, but that I didn’t think I could because of what happened, and he suggested that I do it online. Start by selling pieces on Etsy or something, and go from there. I was thinking I’d start in the new year.”

She’s nibbling at her lip, but she has no reason to be nervous.

“That’s great, Sans,” Jon encourages, squeezing her thighs beneath his palms. He thinks it’s a fantastic idea, actually.

“It will be low cost,” Sansa explains, sitting up and wringing her hands together before her. “And I can even use a pseudonym or username so that when people look up the shop they won’t immediately see my arrest. It will just be small, because it’s just me and designing and then making pieces is a big commitment. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Jon says, squeezing her legs again. “And you don’t need my permission, you know.”

“I know,” she replies, and she sounds truthful when she says it. “But we’re doing this together now, right? This is what people do?”

Jon sits up so he can kiss her again, coaxing her into something gentle and sweet, his hands gently smoothing up her sides.

“Aye,” he agrees between kisses. “Together.”

Sansa pushes him back down into the bed, hands sliding down his chest as she moves all her hair to one side. She pulls away from his lips to mouth at his jaw, hand sneaking lower and lower.

Jon’s phone pings once, and then a second time, interrupting whatever she’d been going to do. He has a feeling it was going to be good.

“You better check that,” Sansa says, sliding off his waist and settling into the pillow beside him.

He groans but dutifully roles over, knowing it’s likely Arya. Probably giving him shit about not being home, but on the off chance that something is actually wrong . . .

_Jfc_

_Are you done boning my sister or are you planning to come home soon_

Sansa presses herself into his back, draping kisses up his spine.

_I’ll be home before they wake up_

He bites his lip, then adds: _the sheets are washed in the spare room. I’ll be back before you wake up too_

 _Oh my god,_ Arya immediately replies.

_Let her have some rest, for godssake_

_Shame on you_

Jon feels only a little bad about it, but that disappears when Sansa runs her fingertips over his waist and then drags the tip of her tongue over his shoulder blade.

Jon drops his phone immediately, turning back around to catch Sansa’s beautiful soft lips in a kiss and settling between the cradle of her thighs, because he can’t believe he gets to _do_ that now –

His phone dings again, and Jon drops his head to Sansa’s shoulder.

“Your sister is infuriating,” he grumbles.

Sansa shrugs, though there’s a smile on her face. “You’re the one who asked her to babysit.”

Jon lifts himself from out between her legs and gets his phone again, but Sansa offers him no relief from his torment, snaking her hand around his hip to palm at his hardening dick.

_These sheets r really soft, ur forgiven for this indiscretion_

Jon almost goes cross-eyed when Sansa slips her fingers beneath the waistband of his briefs, and his breath catches in his throat on a whimper.

“Fuck, Sans,” he groans, struggling to type _don’t text unless it’s an emergency, I’m busy._

He turns back around, hand cupping her face desperately as her nails scrape against his back.

Jon nudges his nose against hers, breaking the kiss from a moment so he can rasp into her ear, “Can you take me again, sweetheart?”

Sansa moans, her back arching underneath him, and whispers, “Yes, yes. Please Jon.”

“I knew you could,” he praises, hand sliding down to cup her breast. “You’re so good for me, Sansa.”

Jon lines himself up to her, in such anticipation to be inside her again, and when he sinks into her for the third time that night, Jon doesn’t know how he ever got so lucky.

She feels so perfect around him, and it’s so overwhelming, how _content_ he feels. He could stay between her legs forever, but he doesn’t want to miss out on everything else that being with her entails.

Jon tilts his head so he can catch her lips again, something he’ll never get sick of, then leans down further so he can rasp in her ear, “I want you to ride me, Sansa.”

She whimpers beneath him, a mewling little thing, and Jon pulls out from her before he changes his mind and his restraint leaves him - again.

He catches her about the waist and flips them over, and when she braces her hands on his chest to take him _he’s_ the one who’s reduced to a whimpering mess.

“You’re so perfect, Sansa,” he murmurs, the wetness of her cunt setting his body on fire. Just the idea that he’s the one who’s done to this her is enough to make him her willing slave forever. “So fucking perfect. I would spend the rest of the night making love to you, if you’d let me.”

She groans, head thrown back, tits bouncing as she rides him. Jon reaches up to palm one, to pinch a nipple between his fingers, suddenly feeling very much like he’s not spent near enough time learning them tonight.

No matter. He’s got the rest of his fucking life.

Jon sets his alarm for four a.m., and when it goes off he seriously considers ignoring it.

But Sansa stirs beside him, nuzzling her head into his chest, and murmurs, “You gotta get home?”

Yeah, he really does. If he doesn’t get home before the kids wake up, he’s going to be facing a lot of very justified questions. He’s never spent a night away from them, and to have them wake up to a house that he’s not in without having told them feels like a betrayal of their dynamic.

“Go back to sleep,” he replies, sweeping his palm over her cheek and tucking her hair behind her ear.

She mumbles a response, and then settles back into the pillows. Jon has a short shower in her ensuite, then dresses himself back into the same clothes. Before he leaves, Jon leans down to kiss her forehead, and Sansa surprises him when she reaches blindly out to fist his shirt and bring him down into a proper kiss.

“I’ll call you later,” he promises. “Maybe you can come ‘round for dinner.”

Sansa sighs around a smile, though her eyes are still closed. “’Kay,” she mumbles. “Love you.”

His heart is so fit to burst that he has to swoop down for another quick kiss. “Love you, too.”

When Jon gets home at around five, he divests himself of his clothes and changes into his pyjamas. He’s absolutely exhausted, but when he falls into bed to go back to sleep, it’s with a blissful smile on his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at this point I've spent so much time with this chapter (and building up to it) that I think I was never going to be happy lol. 
> 
> also there's probs still 2-3 more chapters! 
> 
> as always, my [Tumblr is here ](https://ladyalice101.tumblr.com)
> 
> I hope everyone is having an amazing day xxx


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We were thinking we could all go for a picnic this afternoon,” Jon tells her. “If you want to?”
> 
> “That sounds lovely,” Sansa agrees, smiling slightly. “Text me the time, and I’ll be there.”
> 
> “Alright. And Sans?”
> 
> “Yeah?”
> 
> “Don’t make yourself come,” he instructs, voice pitched lower, and her breathing hitches. “If you do, I’ll know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy that ya'll liked the last chapter so much. we're really coming to a close now ;( I've got a couple ideas for some little one shots, and maybe even an idea for a full blown sequel. 
> 
> in any case, pls enjoy this one, and I'll see you next chapter for the finale.

Lyra, Will and Arya pounding around in the kitchen is what wakes Jon up only two hours later. He groans and covers his head with his pillow, but it’s no use. They’re all awake now, so so is he.

On his way down the stairs, he sees the three of them have made a huge mess in his kitchen.

“What’s happening down here?” he asks curiously. He’s too happy to be upset with them, and, really, if Arya hadn’t come ‘round yesterday so quickly he wouldn’t have had as much time with Sansa as he did. He really can’t be mad at her.

“Daddy!” Will and Lyra shout.

Lyra jumps into his arms, and Jon only just catches her, and Will winds his arms around Jon’s leg.

“How’d you two sleep?” Jon questions, ruffling Will’s hair and kissing Lyra’s cheek.

“We watched Home Alone with Yaya,” Lyra informs him, resting her hand on his shoulder as she looks over to Arya with a serious look on her face.

“We watched Kevin,” Will agrees, bouncing on his feet.

“Christmas movies already?” he teases, setting Lyra down.

“Christmas movies are for every day of the year, dad,” Lyra says sternly.

“Yeah, dad,” Arya agrees around a laugh, stirring what looks like eggs in a bowl.

Jon narrows his eyes at her. “What are you making?”

“We started with pancakes,” Lyra tells him, rushing back over to Arya, “but we didn’t have enough flour, so we’ve moved on to French toast.”

Jon warily looks over the huge mess they’ve made. “You’re going to clean up after, right?”

Arya rolls her eyes at him, and keeps mixing. He takes that as a yes.

“Where did you go last night?” Lyra asks him, getting up on the seat at the counter and watching Arya intently, eyes raking over each move she makes.

“I went and saw Sansa,” he replies, only a tad bit hesitant.

Lyra turns to look up at him with a big pout. “Why didn’t _I_ get to see Sansa?”

Jon feels a small tug on his foot and looks down, but it’s just Will running a car over his foot.

“We had some things we needed to talk about,” Jon says. “Will, you wanna sit up here?”

“No,” he says, and keeping running his car over Jon’s toes.

Well, he _did_ ask the question, Jon supposes.

“I meant that you should sit up here,” Jon corrects, then squats down to try and encourage Will up.

“Why type of things?” Lyra asks.

“Adult things.”

“I’m _practically_ an adult. Tell me.”

“We’ll talk about it later. Come on Will, sit up here please.”

Will does as he’s told this time, hopping up onto the chair and swinging his legs beneath him, running the car over the countertop.

“When’s later?” Lyra presses.

“After breakfast,” Jon promises. “Which Arya is lovely enough to be making for you.”

“We’ll see how it tastes before you sing my praises,” Arya says, though she’s looking at Jon more intently than he wishes she were. When he rounds the counter to help, she lowers her voice and asks, “How’d it go?”

A large grin blooms over Jon’s face as he thinks of how _fantastic_ it went with Sansa.

In an uncharacteristically gentle voice, she says, “I’m happy for you. Both of you.”

“Thanks,” Jon says, too happy to even feel uncomfortable at discussing her sister. Jon pinches her side and she jumps out of his reach with an exasperated sigh. “Now, let’s see if we can’t fix this.”

After Arya leaves, Jon sits Will and Lyra down at the dining table. If he has them get dressed and brush their teeth, they won’t have the patience to come back and sit down, so he thinks it’s best to do this now.

“Is this about Sansa?” Lyra asks, before Jon can even open his mouth.

He’d figured she’d already know.

“Aye, it is,” Jon says, pressing his hands together and resting them on the table in front of him. He looks over them both for a moment, Lyra who is staring at him and Will who is running his fingers along the table. Jon takes a deep breath, then lets it out. He’s been rehearsing what he’s going to say them since he left Sansa’s this morning. Gods he hopes this goes over okay. “I want you both to know that I love you more than anything, and that I won’t ever do anything that makes you guys unhappy.”

Lyra nods sagely, but Will is still fiddling with the edge of the table. Jon knows this conversation is going to be particularly hard with him, because Jon isn’t entirely sure he’s paying attention.

“Sansa and I have decided we want to be more than friends,” Jon tells them, looking between the two to gauge their reactions.

Lyra sighs dramatically and slumps against the table. “Thank _goodness_ you didn’t ruin it,” she groans, then pushes back into sitting up as if nothing happened. “Is she gonna be our new mum?”

Jon bites his lip. _Honesty,_ he reminds himself.

“Not necessarily, pumpkin,” Jon says. Lyra looks unexpectedly crushed, so Jon reaches across the table to take her hand. “We love each other, and she loves you guys, but we don’t have to move that quickly. And I want you to know that if you ever get uncomfortable by what’s happening, then I would like you to tell me. We’re a family, and we don’t keep secrets from each other.”

Lyra fiddles with his fingers, then sighs again. “So what will be different then? Is she still gonna get us from school?”

Jon purses his lips.

The thing is, is that Jon would happily let Sansa keep doing the days. It would be the start to a real family dynamic.

But the last thing he wants is to put pressure on Sansa, to make it seem like he’s confused about his feelings for her because she’s great with his kids. He thinks it’s important that he and Sansa really cultivate something between themselves without that added dynamic. Slowly they’ll start to build it back in, once Sansa has been through more of her therapy, and maybe once he’s done more of his own, and they’ve all found a nice balance that suits them.

But starting a new relationship and having her take care of the kids seems like too much for now, and certainly goes against their agreement to take it slow. Just because they’re together doesn’t automatically mean she’s their _mother._

And, really, having a paid babysitter in his repertoire of carers is a great thing, and something he really should have done long ago; now it might allow him some more freedom to actually take Sansa out on dates.

“No, we’re gonna take a step back from that, baby,” Jon tells her. “I think it might be best if I get someone else to get you guys on those days.”

“No, I don’t want someone new,” Lyra argues, narrowing her eyes at him around an angry frown, “I want _Sansa.”_

Of all the things he expected to derail this conversation, he didn’t really expect it to be this. That was probably short sighted of him, because he knows how much Lyra and Will adore their time with her. But this is a non-negotiable, _especially_ considering Sansa has said she wants the time back for herself for now.

Jon sighs, squeezing her hand. “I know, but I think it’s for the best if separate the idea of friend Sansa and girlfriend Sansa. It’s important that we set some boundaries early, so that no one feels taken advantage of.”

Jon has no doubt that Will isn’t listening to this part of the conversation, so tries to steer it back into something more understandable for him. Jon reaches out for Will’s hand too, drawing his attention back.

“But Sansa will still spend lots of time with us. She’ll come around more often, and eventually maybe spend some nights here, or I might spend some nights there. If those things are okay with you two.”

Jon isn’t sure what he’ll do if they say they _aren’t_ okay with it, but he supposes he’ll have to figure that out if they feel that way.

“I love Sansa,” Lyra tells him. “I think she’d be a good mum.”

“She isn’t yet,” Jon reminds her. “And she doesn’t ever have to be, if you don’t want her to be.”

Lyra just blinks at him.

Jon turns to Will. “Do you understand, Will? If you don’t want Sansa around, I want you to tell me.”

“I like Sansa,” Will says, his fingers pausing their trail along the table.

“So you’re okay with her being my girlfriend?”

The title feels inadequate compared to what he feels for Sansa, but he supposes there isn’t another appropriate term that he could use that they’d understand.

It’ll have to do for now, until he can call her wife.

Though he supposes he shouldn’t get ahead of himself.

Will smacks his lips together, spreading his arms out over the table. “Is Sansa your girlfriend?”

“Yeah baby, she is,” Jon says softly, taking Will’s hand again. “That okay?”

“Sansa’s your girlfriend?” Will repeats. He asks once more, and Jon confirms each time, and when he’s done Will just nods and slips from his chair.

“Can Sansa take me to the park?” Will asks, wandering away from the table.

Jon almost sags against the table in relief.

“Why don’t we all go this afternoon and have a picnic together?”

“Picnic!” Lyra gasps with delight, seeming to have forgotten what had upset her. “Oh, yes, daddy, please!”

“Alright, I’ll call her while you two get dressed and brush your teeth.”

Jon pushes back from the table as Lyra squeals in delight.

“I won’t call her if you don’t get dressed,” he warns, and this time she pushes out from the table and rushes up the stairs so quickly she trips over. She’s back up immediately, however, not even pausing in her journey up, and Jon can’t help but fondly chuckle at her enthusiasm.

Jon has to prod Will a couple times, but eventually he gets him upstairs, too. Jon disappears into his own bedroom so he can shower again, a real shower, and get changed into proper clothes.

First, though, he calls Sansa.

Sansa is woken by the sound of her phone ringing. She rolls over to answer, a delicious ache in her body and between her thighs. 

It’s Jon calling, and a silly smile lights up her face at the thought of him.

“Hey.”

“Shit, did I wake you?”

Somehow, the sound of his voice this morning, after a night in which she’s learnt just how fucking sexy it can be, almost sends her out of her mind.

Sansa clears her throat, trying to get some semblance of chill. “It’s fine. How are you?”

“Fantastic,” he replies, a sweet edge of honesty in his voice. The sound echoes a little funnily, and she realises he must be in the bathroom. “And you?”

Sansa turns her face into her pillow, trying to smother her girlish sigh. She just feels so . . . so . . . There aren’t any words for how she feels. She feels so satisfied and satiated, and so content and happy. She’s never felt such a keen sense of peace.

“Amazing,” she agrees around a smile, “though like I won’t be able to walk for three days.”

Jon groans, a heavy, ragged thing, and Sansa laughs into her pillow. 

“Shit, Sans, you can’t say that to a man and expect him to keep his mind,” he mutters, and she can imagine him running his hand through his hair. 

“Maybe I don’t want you to,” she challenges, “maybe I want to drive you a little mad to the thought of me touching myself.”

Oh, she’s being much too bold for a sleepy Sunday morning following only one night of passion, but she feels like she couldn’t possibly hold in her thoughts any longer. It’s not done either of them any favours recently.

Jon groans again, and then she hears the distinct sound of his bathroom door locking.

Sansa bites her lip, then rolls over and slides her hand beneath the covers, lightly dragging her fingers over her stomach. 

“Gods, Sans,” he mumbles, and she hears him fumbling with his pants. It’s about the hottest thing she’s ever heard, and it prompts her to slip her middle finger between her quickly slickening folds. “Keep talking, sweetheart. You touching that pretty little cunt of yours?”

“Yes,” she sighs, a little thing. Her eyes close and her head falls back, and even though she knows just where to touch, just what pace she prefers, the slightness of her fingers on her clit is nothing comparing to the feel of the rough pads of his fingers. “Your fingers feel so much better than mine Jon, I wish I was with you.”

“Fuck,” he swears under his breath. “You feel better, too. I can’t stop thinking about how hot and wet you were, Sans.”

“I’m wet now,” she says, a hint of promise in her voice. She slides her fingers down just to feel how wet she truly is. She moans a little, dragging the moisture up her slit to circle her nub again. “Even just the thought of you makes me wet. I can’t wait to see you again, to _feel_ you again.”

“As soon as I get you alone again, I’m going to fuck you until you can’t think anything but my name,” Jon promises, and holy _shit_ it’s so bloody hot, sounds so fucking good, and Sansa wants it so badly her whole body is burning. “But I’m not going to let you come until you’re _begging_ for it. And then I –“

A loud bagging on his end interrupts him, and Sansa’s fingers pause in their frantic pattern.

“Dad, Will took my book!”

“Lyra, darling, I’m busy,” Jon calls, his voice strangled, and Sansa finds this whole thing an awful mixture of mortifying and highly amusing. “Sort it out please!”

“Daaaaaad!”

“Lyra,” Jon says, sterner this time. “Off you go. I’ll be out soon.”

Sansa doesn’t hear Lyra again, just Jon’s heavy breathing, but then he groans suddenly. “I can hear them fighting,” he grumbles. “I’m gonna have to go.”

“That’s okay,” Sansa says, even though she’s on the edge of something fantastic. But she knew what she was getting in to. “We’ll talk later.”

“We were thinking we could all go for a picnic this afternoon,” Jon tells her. “If you want to?”

“That sounds lovely,” Sansa agrees, smiling slightly. “Text me the time, and I’ll be there.”

“Alright. And Sans?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make yourself come,” he instructs, voice pitched lower, and her breathing hitches. “If you do, I’ll know.”

Sansa pulls her hand from her cunt, helpless against his voice. “I promise.”

“Good,” he says, and then his voice switches from something promising to unbearably tender. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Sansa replies around a brilliant smile.

Jon swings ‘round to pick up Sansa at around two.

She rushes out of the house, a big smile on her face, and when she slides into his car Lyra and Will greet her with their usual enthusiasm.

Sansa doesn’t know what she was expecting from them; she’d spent more than a little time pondering what their reactions would be to seeing her. Would they be happy? Upset? Would it be any different at all? Would they ask questions, or not care?

“Sansa!” Lyra crows in delight. “Your sweater is _so_ nice.”

Sansa glances down at the cream sweater; it’s one of Louis Vuitton’s, the company’s monogram over the breast and the sweater adorned with buttons over the shoulders, and it’s one of the last pieces she got for the season before she left. She’s not brought out anything so expensive in a while, but today she wanted to and didn’t let herself talk herself out of it.

“Thanks, baby,” Sansa says, reaching back to run her hand over Lyra, and then Will’s, knee.

“Can we play together when we get to the park?” Lyra asks.

“Yes!” Will says, hands covering his mouth in delight as he looks at her with wide eyes. “With the crocodiles.”

“Sure,” Sansa agrees. “We’re going shopping first though, right?”

Jon had texted her about an hour ago saying they needed to get some supplies for their picnic, and had asked if she’d wanted to come along for that. Sansa had readily agreed, because she’s more than happy to spend whatever time with him she can, considering how much they’d wasted; and, to herself, she’d thought it a good way to start easing Will and Lyra into the idea of them as a couple.

“We are,” Jon says, and then gives her a small, shy smile. “Hey.”

Her heart picks up at the sight of it. She’s fairly sure Jon could smile at her like that every day for the rest of her life and it would never change how her body reacts.

“Hi,” she whispers. She wishes she could kiss him, but that’s too much in front of the kids. Sansa hardly remembers her _own_ parents kissing in front of her when she was younger.

Jon’s thoughts seem to be in the same space, if the little frown between his brows is any indication, but he reaches his hand for hers. Sansa drags her fingertips over his palm and then laces their fingers together. The smile that graces his face almost blinds her, and even though he has to use both hands to pull away from the curb, he immediately puts his hand back in hers and props his elbow on the arm rest.

The trip is mostly filled with Lyra chattering away about what she wants to do at the park, about how much she loves picnics, and occasionally she says something that resonates with Will because he repeats what she’s saying with enthusiasm.

When they’re inside the shop, Will just takes Jon’s hand silently, watching his own feet walk with a deep curiosity that makes a smile spread over Sansa’s face, and Lyra marches ahead of Sansa and stops in front of each row of fruit and vegetables and has a long discussion with Sansa about which ones she likes and which ones she doesn’t. Jon and Will disappear right at the beginning of this talk, with a tilt of Jon’s head and a permissive smile from Sansa, but eventually the boys wander back to them.

Their basket is stuffed with cheeses and crackers and a huge tub of chocolate powder, and when Lyra catches sight of the boys returning she stops mid-sentence and tugs on Sansa’s hand.

“Sansa,” she says seriously, “did they go and pick the food themselves? They didn’t ask our opinion?”

“I’m sure they got the good stuff,” Sansa reassures.

Lyra tugs on her hand again, frowning up at her. “Sansa, dad gets _plain_ crackers instead of _salted_ ones. How am I supposed to eat that? We have to say something.”

“Plain crackers aren’t as bad for you,” Sansa points out, leading Lyra over to meet the boys.

“Yeah, and they taste terrible. Don’t worry, I’ve got this. Dad!”

Jon sighs loudly, frowning down at Lyra. “No, Lyra, we’re not getting salted crackers.”

Sansa has to actually make a concerted effort not the burst into laughter. She’s sure Jon hadn’t overheard their conversation; no, he just knew exactly what Lyra was going to say.

“This is the worst day ever,” Lyra informs them, then crosses her arms. “And I’m officially protesting against plain crackers.”

“Protesting is reserved for violations of your rights, we talked about this,” Jon says, with long suffering sigh as if this is a conversation they’ve had too many times in the past.

He catches Sansa’s eye and tilts his head towards the exit, and Sansa takes Lyra’s hand. Lyra is so focused on the debate that she hardly notices Jon and Sansa leading them all out.

“I think this qualifies,” Lyra argues.

“Not exactly,” Sansa interjects, gently squeezing Lyra’s hand. “The UN Human Rights Charter only refers to having an ‘adequate’ standard of living, which only includes access to food insofar as it contributes to the up-keep of your health. No violations of rights if it’s plain over salted.”

Lyra blinks up at her, and Sansa isn’t sure what of that Lyra actually understood, while Jon’s lips part in surprise as he pauses midstep.

He recovers first, and nods down at Lyra. “What Sansa said.”

“So . . . no crackers?” Lyra asks, obviously rather thrown about Sansa’s point.

Sansa chuckles. “ _Plain_ crackers,” she corrects.

Jon gives Sansa a brilliant, fond smile, and Sansa feels rather proud of having bested Lyra, even if that’s a ridiculous notion. She’s seen Jon debate with his daughter several times before, but usually Sansa leaves them to it. Her tummy feels all warm and fluttery, to have teamed up with Jon in an effort to convince Lyra.

She’s not – . . . when Sansa was younger, she couldn’t wait to be a mother, and she’d always known she’d be good at it. When she’d met Joffrey, it had felt like her dreams were coming true. When she’d realized the truth of him, of course, she’d made sure that that couldn’t happen; even if Joffrey hadn’t visited her bed as frequently as he could have, distracted as he was by his affairs and mistresses.

By the time Sansa had decided to divorce him, consequences be damned, she’d thought she was a long way away from motherhood, if she were ever lucky enough to have it happen at all.

But Sansa has thought about this a lot, and had even broached it with her therapist (before she and Jon had been honest with each other, to be fair, but still), and she knows to just dive into a relationship with Jon and take on Lyra and Will as her own kids is too much. It would be too much for someone who hadn’t underwent what Sansa has, so she knows they need to go slow.

And they will, of course they will, and their agreement that she’s not going to get the kids for now is a really good start towards that. But there are other ways they can build something, create a family unit slowly, and she and Jon being a united front is one. 

Jon loads their basket of food onto the belt while Sansa distracts Will and Lyra, keeping them occupied so Jon can do what he needs; and then the four of them make their way out of the shopping centre.

“YES!” Lyra shouts in delight, jumping up and down on the spot.

Sansa, however, winces.

It’s started to snow.

The clouds had rolled in about an hour ago, but Sansa had thought they’d have longer until it started to snow. Apparently not.

“Are we still going?” Will asks, tugging on Jon’s hand.

Jon purses his lips, staring up at the sky, and then turns to Sansa. She shrugs helplessly, having no idea.

She’d prefer for them to go home to the warmth, but – well, they did promise the kids a picnic.

A brilliant idea comes to her suddenly, and Sansa can see it unfurling in her mind.

“Why don’t we have a picnic at home instead?” she suggests. “We could set up a fort in the living room and have our picnic under there.”

Lyra gasps, covering her mouth with her hands and saying, “That’s _perfect.”_

Will expresses no discontent over not going to the park, and Jon shoots her a relieved smile, and just like that it’s decided.

 _Yeah_ , Sansa thinks as Lyra grabs her hand and excitedly tells her what sheets they should use, _they’re gonna be fine._

By the time Will and Lyra fall asleep, Sansa feels like she’s about to explode. The four of them had been all cuddled beneath their fort, Lyra and Will between she and Jon while they’d watched _How the Grinch Stole Christmas,_ which had been followed by _Elf_ ; during which Jon had sequestered Sansa into the kitchen for them to make some popcorn.

That’s what he’d said, anyway, but as soon as the bag was in the microwave he’d glanced around the corner to make sure they hadn’t been followed and had then pressed her into the kitchen bench, hands dragging over her thighs as he’d kissed her until her mind went blank.

He’d then dipped his fingers just below the waist of her jeans, taken her earlobe between his teeth and murmured, “Did you touch yourself today, Sansa?”

She’d shaken her head, breathless and burning, and then the microwave had gone off and he’d given her a parting kiss and a sly smirk before pushing away from her.

Sansa’s heart has been beating steadily in her chest since then, only made worse by the fact that instead of getting back into the fort, Jon had given the kids the popcorn and then led Sansa to the lounge, out of sight of them.

He’d not done anything but run his fingers up her leg and arm, not even kissed her, but that was almost worse. There’s an uncomfortable thrumming beneath Sansa’s skin that’s only going to be satiated in one way, and the thought of having to wait is driving her mad with both frustration and desire.

Halfway through the next movie, _Polar Express,_ Jon checks his phone and then peeks into the fort.

“They’re asleep,” he tells her, a smirk on his face. “Let’s get them in bed and then I’m going to have my way with you.”

Gods, she seriously needs that relief. Jon takes the roof of the fort down, then picks up Lyra, who is snoring rather loudly. Sansa gets Will, and once they’ve put the two of them in bed, Jon takes her hand and leads her into his bedroom.

He locks the door behind them while Sansa takes in his room; there are lot of pictures of the kids around, a couple of him with Robb and Arya; he’s got a bookshelf to one side that is filled to the brim with a variety of fiction books; there’s a door to an ensuite, which is where he must have been this morning when he’d called her; and on his bed are the blue checked sheets, the ones she’d picked out for him on the first day she met him.

Sansa smooths her hand over them, smiling to herself. Gods she’s glad she came back to Winterfell.

Jon’s hand curves over her hip as he uses his other to push her hair aside, baring her neck to him. His lips brush over her skin, and a tingle shoots through her. She hadn’t known, not truly, what a touch as simple as this could do to her. Perhaps it will fade with time, this excitement that can be borne from so little, but perhaps it won’t.

“You’ve been so patient today,” he murmurs against her throat, lips whispering over her skin. Sansa couldn’t stop the shiver that runs through her if she tried. One of his hands slides around her stomach, the tips of his fingers slipping beneath her waistband. “Did exactly what I asked.”

One of Sansa’s hands flies up to circle his wrist, feeling so pent up she can hardly stand it, but Jon pauses, and she can practically feel his hesitance.

“You okay?” he asks quietly. “Did I go too far?”

“No, keep going,” Sansa encourages, “keep talking.”

She’d been mildly surprised, last night, to find out that Jon likes to run his mouth in bed; she’d been less surprised to find that she liked it. He’d asked at some point during the night, between one of her many orgasms, whether she wanted him to stop talking, but she’d told him that as long as it was praise that kept spilling from his lips she wanted him to tell her his every thought.

He’s taken it very seriously, and gods above she loves it. It makes something white hot sit in her gut when she hears the heavy rasp of his voice against her ear telling her how good she is.

One day she’ll tell him the extent of what she wants him to say, how she might want him to treat her in bed occasionally – and they’d gotten close enough to rough yesterday, at the door, that Sansa knows for _certain_ that she wants it, and that she wants it from him – but for now this is perfect.

Jon’s hand restarts its gentle exploration, lifting out of her jeans to unsnap the button and undo the zip.

“I’ve thought about you all day,” he says, nosing behind her ear as his tongue darts out against her skin; he nips in the same place, his teeth pulling gently, and Sansa’s head falls back against his shoulder. “How hot and wet you were for me last night. Whether or not you’d follow my instructions.”

“Yes,” she replies, breathless, “yes, I had to. I want to –“

Sansa bites her lip, hands tightening around his. This is – well, it’s getting into some mild kink, one that probably isn’t for everyone, and even though she’s fairly sure Jon will be into it – if the praise that so easily and repeatedly spills from him is anything to go by – they should actually talk about it before they truly get into it.

“You want what, sweetheart?” Jon asks, pulling his fingers further away from where they’d been edging close to her cunt. “Tell me why you had to.”

“I want to be a good girl,” she confesses on an exhale, a small concession.

Jon stills behind her, his body going rigid, and then suddenly he groans, his head falling forward to brace into her shoulder.

“Shit, Sans,” he grunts. She can feel the interest he has in such a prospect against her arse, and Sansa rolls her hips back, encouraged. His hand slips into her panties, fingers dipping low to feel how wet she is, and then immediately back up, starting a quick pace around her clit. Her body jerks back from how abrupt it is, and Jon settles her against him, his other arm tight around her waist. “Gods, we’re gonna – we’re gonna talk about that one. Fuck, I know you’ll be such a good girl for me – “

Sansa breath hitches; she reaches her hands back over her head to tug at his hair, her body burning and her tummy tightening, and if it were anybody else she might not believe she was getting here so quickly, except all day her cunt has been throbbing at the memory of last night and because she’d not released her tension this morning she’s been thinking about this _all day,_ has needed this so much she could hardly focus, and he’s spent the better part of an hour downstairs teasing her –

Jon’s hand pulls from her panties as abruptly as he’d shoved it down them, and he spins her around so fast her hair flies out behind her. She whines at the loss, having felt something so good _right there,_ and the frustration of being denied again is almost enough to make tears pool.

Jon is a sight to behold, his hair messy from her tugs, his eyes dark as they stare at her, his pretty lips parted and his chest heaving with the same desire she feels.

“On my bed.”

Sansa lays back eagerly, desperate for him to make her come.

“You’ve got to be quiet,” Jon tells her, tugging her jeans down.

“Yes, I promise,” Sansa says, just needing him to get his mouth on her, his fingers in her, his cock, whatever, she just _needs._ “Please, Jon, I can’t – I need you, _please.”_

Jon grips her thighs and hitches her calves over his shoulders, then sets his mouth to her clit. Sansa presses her palms over her mouth to muffle her cry, and Jon pulls back slightly.

“Quiet,” he reminds her.

“Gods, Jon, _please.”_

When he puts his mouth back on her his time, he slides two fingers inside her cunt as well, and it takes only three, four, five thrusts of his hand for her to tumble over the edge. Her back arches as heat explodes within her, from the tips of her fingers to the top of her head to the curl of her toes; her eyes squeeze shut and her thighs clap against his ears, ankles hooked behind his head, and she comes so hard that she couldn’t make any noise anyway.

She’s hard pressed to catch her breath afterwards, and she pushes her palms into her eyes because even just the dim light of his lamp is too much. Sansa feels the bed dip as Jon lays down beside her, placing a heavy hand over her stomach.

“You’re pretty good at that,” Sansa tells him after a moment, letting her hands fall to her sides. Not that she has much experience with someone eating her out; but that’s how she knows not every man sets to it with the dedication he does.

As she turns her head, he chuckles out a, “thanks,” but it’s the glisten of his lips that capture her attention. Curiously, Sansa leans forward, catching his mouth. He doesn’t taste like him; he tastes like _her._ It’s neither good nor bad, but it is _hot,_ and Sansa presses herself harder against him, dipping her head slightly lower so that she can kiss away the taste of her cunt from his chin as well.

“We’re gonna talk about that _good girl_ business,” Jon rasps, reaching down to fumble with his belt and jeans. The sound of it reminds her of something _else_ she wants to talk about, something she’d been thinking about for months that the clink of his buckle has reminded her of, but they’ve got a lot of time to explore all of those things. She doesn’t need to live out every fantasy in a day, no matter how fantastic that prospect sounds.

Jon kicks off his jeans, and Sansa covers her mouth to try and suppress the giggle at his desperation. She doesn’t succeed, and Jon shoots her an exasperated stare, but then he rolls between her legs and Sansa’s laugh disappears on a choked moan.

“I don’t even remember the last time I had this much sex in a weekend,” Jon says, bending his head to suck at her neck. 

“I don’t think I ever have.”

He lifts his head to give her a small smile. “Don’t worry,” he informs her, “we’ve got a lot of weekends ahead to fix that.”

While they wait for her Uber to arrive to take her home, Sansa presses Jon into the door and kisses him leisurely. She drags her hands over his stomach, palms underneath his shirt, and he feels her up, cupping her breast and squeezing her arse.

There’s no urgency to it – there’s no need for that after the last twenty four hours – but she still feels a bit like a teenager. It’s nice, though, to know that she _can._ She’d never experienced something like this, this intense desire for someone, not with a boy before Joffrey and certainly not with him.

Now she’s got her sexy new partner pinned to the door while she makes out with him until her lips are red and swollen and she’s sure they’ll chap.

Her phone dings with the arrival of her Uber, and Jon groans, hands dropping from her breasts and mouth pulling from hers so he can straighten her shirt and smooth back her hair.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Jon asks as he opens the door for them. A blast of cold air sweeps inside and Sansa shivers. The snow has stuck, for now, and everything is dusted in a beautiful white.

“The new bench top in the kitchen is being installed. Then I’m tiling the splashback.”

Jon screws his nose up. “I hate tiling. Want me to come ‘round with wine and takeout when you’re done?”

Sansa reaches up to kiss him, then shakes her head. “No, you better spend the evening with your kids.”

Her kiss sets his mind to one track, and he cups her cheeks to kiss her again. Sansa laughs against his mouth, and pulls back from him.

“I’ve got to go!”

“I wish you could stay,” he mutters, stealing another few kisses from her.

“Slow, remember?”

Jon kisses her again, then again, and then the Uber honks their horn.

Sansa jumps out of Jon’s arms, mortified, and Jon clears his throat. “Uh, right. You should probably –“

“Gods, how embarrassing,” Sansa mutters, then opens the car door. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Jon promises, and shuts the door for her.

She waves at him as the Uber pulls away from the curb immediately.

“Sorry,” Sansa says, pulling her seatbelt on.

The driver just hums, and doesn’t reply further. Sansa feels a bit guilty, but they hadn’t really kept him waiting that long, and there’s no reason for him to be dismissive of her.

Sansa doesn’t offer any more apologies, and doesn’t let him spoil her good mood.

She can’t believe it’s only been a day since Jon came ‘round to her house. It’s been the most perfect twenty-four hours, and Sansa doesn’t remember the last time she felt so giddy, right to her very bones.

It’s a life changing feeling. 

_Gods_ she’s glad she came back to Winterfell.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon puts the call on speakerphone and chucks the phone on the bed, tugging his curls.
> 
> “Look, I don’t think this is the right time to talk about this,” Jon says, getting his jeans and pulling them on.
> 
> “When is the time?” Robb demands. “Seriously, Jon, you don’t – I – how long has this been going on?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies on the delay for this one folks, I’d wanted to have this story completely done by new year but I’ve gone on holidays and the few days before turned out to be rather mad. 
> 
> I have added an extra chapter, but be warned it will probs be a few days before I update it bc I’m in Nepal trekking so like ... I’m tired haha. BUT I want it have it out asap bc I have decided to go ahead with the sequel and I want to write as much as I can before I get home! 
> 
> I hope everyone had a great NYE, and I wish every single one of you a great 2020! Xx

Jon groans as his phone starts to ring, his head falling between the valley of Sansa’s breasts.

She stills the rock of her hips, rising onto her knees so she can see who’s calling. Jon groans again as he slips out of her, fingers gripping her hips in an effort to guide her back to him.

“It’s Robb,” Sansa tells him around her heavy panting.

“Let it go to voicemail,” Jon grunts, moving back on the bed slightly to accommodate her, trying to get her to go back to riding him.

“It could be about the kids,” Sansa points out, but she lowers herself back into his lap all the same.

“It won’t be, he’ll be wondering why I’m not home from work yet.”

Jon lines himself back up to Sansa’s wet cunt, groaning again as she sinks back onto him. Sansa starts to move again, fingers winding into the curls at his nape and tugging harshly. Jon’s head falls back and Sansa bends her head to kiss him, hard and hot, restarting her greedy roll of hips.

His phone stops ringing eventually, but starts again only a few seconds later.

“You need to get it,” Sansa says, stopping and rising off him again. She falls to the bed beside him, stretching her arms above her head, while Jon grabs his phone from where’d dumped it in the centre of her covers when she’d undone his jeans and pushed him down by his shoulders to sit on the edge.

“Hello?” Jon answers, trying not to sound as out of breath as he is. Sansa bites her lip, locking her eyes with him, then slides her hand down her stomach and to her cunt, lazily drawing circles around herself.

“Are you fucking my sister?” Robb demands.

Jon’s mouth drops open, his brain still too caught up in doing exactly that to comprehend how Robb could possibly know.

“W-what?” Jon stammers, eyes locked on Sansa’s. She pauses her movements and frowns at him, then props herself up on her elbows.

“Lyra just said – gods, Jon, just answer the damn question. Did you and Sansa get together?”

His relief that Robb doesn’t mean _are you fucking my sister right this second_ is overshadowed by a rush of frustration, suddenly, because it’s none of Robb’s fucking business, especially if he’s going to be an arse about it.

It’s funny, because his friendship with Robb and Arya was one of the biggest reasons Jon held back from ever mentioning anything of his feelings to Sansa, but now that he has, now that he knows she loves him like he loves her, Jon doesn’t even have to think twice about this; if Robb is going to be confrontational and upset, there’s no damn way Jon is backing down.

“ _What’s wrong?”_ Sansa mouths at him.

Jon puts the call on speakerphone and chucks the phone on the bed, tugging his curls.

“Look, I don’t think this is the right time to talk about this,” Jon says, getting his jeans and pulling them on.

“When is the time?” Robb demands. “Seriously, Jon, you don’t – I – how long has this been going on?”

“A couple weeks,” Jon relents, looking at Sansa and gesturing between himself and her to clue her into the conversation. Her brows pull down into a frown and she sits up, then slides off the bed to start dressing as well.

“A couple – so, what, you’re, like, fuck buddies or something?”

“What did Lyra _say_ to you?” Jon asks, perplexed at how Robb could come to that conclusion.

“Seven Hells, is that what he thinks of us?” Sansa mutters, pulling her shirt over her head.

Robb sighs, and it seems all the fight leaves him. “I don’t know, she said something about how she knows you better than I do and how the woman she picked for you was much better suited than who I picked.”

Jon glares at the phone. “And so from that you got fuck buddies? For fucks sake, Robb, get your head out of your arse. And even if that were the case – which it _isn’t_ – you wouldn’t get a say, either way.”

Robb goes quiet on the other end of the line, breathing deeply, while Jon tries to remind himself to calm down. Jon owes Robb a lot, for multiple reasons in multiple ways, and he knows that Robb has tried really hard to fix his mistakes with Sansa.

But – well, he’d hoped Robb would be better than this. This overprotective shtick has been old for years, especially considering that Robb _knows_ Jon.

“I know,” Robb says eventually. “I just – I don’t know, I’m just surprised, I guess. I didn’t think you wanted to date after that night at dinner, and I don’t understand how Sansa could be ready –“

“Fuck, can everyone just _stop_ assuming what I’m ready for and what I’m not?” Sansa snaps.

Jon’s eyes widen at her, a little taken aback at her abrupt interruption into the conversation. Though he supposes he shouldn’t be; watching Sansa speak more and more of her thoughts has been really encouraging, and each time she does he feels a little more like she’s going to be okay.

“You’re with her _now?”_ Robb asks. “I thought you were at work!”

Jon winces. Making a stop here on his way home is not his finest hour, he supposes, but it’s not really significantly later than he’d usually be home; he’d left work twenty minutes early so he could come here.

He definitely needs to get a paid ‘sitter. That’s going to be his number one priority in the new year.

“Yes, I’m here, so you can stop referring to me in the third person,” Sansa says.

Jon takes her hand, squeezing it gently. She lets her head fall into his chest, arm hooking around his waist.

“I’m sorry,” Robb sighs. “I don’t mean to - . . . I’m happy for the both of you. I am. And I can see it, you know? You guys are actually great together, and I’ve been wondering why you’ve both been so happy but I guess I have my answer, huh?”

Jon presses a kiss to Sansa’s temple, then rests his head against hers.

“I really am sorry,” Robb repeats, after neither Jon nor Sansa say anything. “I’m just – I’m trying really hard, to try and make amends for what happened, and I keep trying to be helpful but I – I think I keep making things worse, don’t I?”

“You do,” Sansa confirms after a long moment. She sighs and pulls away from Jon, then takes a seat on the bed, picking the phone up. She rubs her forehead with her palm, then slumps over her elbow, chin resting her in hand. “But I know you’re trying, Robb. I am, too. And I know you’re just concerned, and that’s nice, but this is me telling you that you don’t need to interfere.”

“The last time you told me that I shouldn’t have listened.”

Jon purses his lips and takes a seat next to Sansa. He grabs her hand again, running his fingers up hers.

“Yes, but this is _Jon,_ Robb.”

“I know. Gods I know, and Jon is the best man I know and exactly the type of person I want for you San. I just - . . . gods, why didn’t I get on a fucking plane?”

When Robb starts to cry, Sansa does too. Jon’s heart aches for the both of them.

Despite his death, Joffrey will always be a pervasive presence in Sansa’s life, and if no reason other than that, Jon hopes the man rots in the deepest of the Seven Hells for all eternity. Jon is always so floored by Sansa’s bravery and courage, and he can’t believe that she’s let him in so thoroughly, that she _trusts_ him. But just because he’s been gifted her love, doesn’t mean her previous marriage and abuse is behind her; whatever form that takes.

Robb sniffles on the line, and Sansa wipes her face, scrubbing her cheeks ‘til they’re red.

“Robb.” Sansa’s voice breaks. Jon leans his forehead into her temple, trying to lend her any strength he can. “It wasn’t just up to you. And there are – gods, there are so many things all of us could have done differently, but we have to live with the choices we’ve made. And Jon has helped me more than you know.”

Robb breathes heavily, and Sansa holds the phone to her chest, eyes closing.

“I’m sorry I called you, Jon,” Robb says eventually. “I shouldn’t have – I don’t know what I was thinking. Something foolish.”

Jon sighs, running his hand up Sansa’s spine. “I don’t care that you called, Robb, I just wish you hadn’t been so angry. Or made accusations.”

“Yeah,” Robb sighs. “Me too. And look – it’s only five, I’ll give them a bath and get dinner started. Don’t rush back. As my apology.”

Jon glances over to Sansa to see her reaction to the prospect. She gives him an encouraging smile, but honestly Robb has kind of killed the mood. Though Jon certainly wouldn’t mind the prospect of just getting under the covers and snuggling with her. They hardly ever do that, because any time they manage to get alone they’ve been filling with sex.

“I’ll still be home for dinner,” Jon decides, because he’s _always_ home in time for dinner.

“Alright, no problems. I’ll have it ready for six.”

“Do you - . . .” Jon pauses, then glances to Sansa, and back to the phone. “Would you like to stay for dinner? Sansa can come, too.”

“That would be really nice,” Robb agrees softly. “I’ll check with Jeyne, but – yeah. I’d like that.”

“We’ll see you soon, Robb,” Sansa says.

Robb gives his own goodbyes, and then ends the calls. For a long moment, Jon says nothing. This is not at all how they wanted Robb – or any of them - to find out about them, though he supposes they shouldn’t have thought they could keep it a secret. And it’s not that it _is_ a secret, per se, it’s just . . . They’d agreed that, for now, they wanted to keep it as something just for them.

With Lyra knowing, however, Jon should have known he and Sansa would get beaten to the punch.

“You alright?” Jon asks, flattening his hand over her thigh and resting his chin on her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Sansa sighs, leaning her head over the top of his. “Robb is – well, he’s Robb. He means well, but he can say some pretty stupid things sometimes.”

“He can,” Jon agrees quietly. “Do you want to come for dinner? You don’t have to, I can make an excuse.”

“No, I’m fine to come.” She pauses, then leans away from him. “I’m not really in the mood for sex anymore, though.”

Jon smiles, pulling her back in for a quick kiss. “Me either. Wanna snuggle beneath the covers?”

Sansa laughs, scooting back on the bed to get under. “You don’t really seem the snuggling type, you know.”

Jon pulls her into him, spitting out her hair in the process, lacing their fingers together and resting their hands over her stomach.

“I like to be the big spoon and the little spoon,” he informs her.

“What, at the same time?” She teases.

“If you could manage that, I’d be pretty impressed.”

Sansa turns so her chest faces him, then hooks her legs over his waist. It doesn’t work, not at all, but they both laugh at her effort. Jon pushes her legs off him, manoeuvring them back into their original position in which her back is to his chest.

“Maybe another time,” Jon says.

“Mm.”

Jon lifts his head slightly to look at her, and her eyes are closed with a small smile on her face.

“You tired, sweetheart?” He murmurs, pulling her hair away from her face and over her shoulder.

“A little.”

“I’ll set an alarm for quarter to six,” he suggests. “A nap sounds really nice.”

Sansa hums again, pushing further into him, and Jon reaches down to get his phone and set the alarm, then settles back behind her. He doesn’t fall asleep until it’s almost time for the alarm to go off, but he doesn’t mind.

He’s just happy to have her in his arms.

The whole afternoon before everyone arrives, Sansa spends in a worry.

What if they don’t like the renovation? What if they think she’s changed it too much? Or not enough?

She calls Jon, a couple hours before he and her family are set to arrive, and tells him why she’s nervous.

“You bought them out, Sansa,” he tells her firmly. “It’s not their house anymore. It’s entirely in your name, and you can do what you want to it.”

“I suppose,” she says, biting her lip.

“It’s true,” Jon counters. “And anyway, if they had an issue with you changing it, they could have said it months ago.”

It’s a good point, good enough that she relents. She lets go of most of her worry, but there’s still some there, even if she logically knows that her nerves are useless and unfounded.

Still, when all the Starks and their partners arrive, Sansa takes them through the house immediately. Jon had texted a half hour ago saying that he and the kids would be late because Will was in a mood, and while Sansa certainly understands, she wishes he were here just for the support. 

Sansa takes them through the bottom floor first: the kitchen – which had been the last thing to finish – the dining, the living room, bathroom, and the one bedroom downstairs. Each time they enter a new room Rickon ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ dramatically, Bran drops little insights into the smallest of details, Robb stands in the middle of the room and nods as if he knows anything about building and renovating, and Arya shoves everyone out of the room so she can “bask in the glory of a modernised house.”

After her siblings vacate each room, their partners filter in afterwards, the variety of them giving much more relaxed responses. Sansa loves all of them, and each time she shares a new room she gets more and more excited. She really was worried for nothing, as Jon assured her would be the case.

By the time they get upstairs, Sansa is positively buzzing with relief and happiness. She has really come to feel like she’s part of the family unit again over the past months, but there’s something else here now. She feels truly accepted back, and while she’s sure none of them were _wary_ of her, there seems to almost be a subconscious difference.

Perhaps they’re all more sure she’s staying for good, now.

When they’re all done looking through the house, Sansa herds them back downstairs and into the dining room, where she’s sat out a variety of food for them all. They’ve decided they’re all going to spend Christmas Day here, which is only a few days away, and Sansa is so immeasurably pleased with the prospect that she’d gone overboard with her cooking today as she’d tried and tested ideas of what to make.

They all settle around the room, each taking glasses and talking amongst themselves. Just as Sansa decides she’s going to go and talk to Jojen, who has made the brave decision to face the entire Stark clan in one go, the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” Sansa says, hoping she hides her eagerness. She doesn’t know why she bothers, because her siblings immediately _ooh_ as if they’re all five years old.

“No teasing in front of the kids,” Sansa warns them all one last time, giving them all a fierce glare and then leaving them behind.

She pulls open the front door, a bright smile on her face, and Lyra and Will tumble inside.

“It’s so cold!” Lyra complains, bending down to undo the laces of her boots. “I think I have hypothermia!”

Jon bends down to help Will with his laces, saying, “Lyra, you _don’t,_ we _just_ discussed this.”

“Yes, but Sansa is here now and so I have a new audience.”

Sansa laughs at Lyra’s honesty, and Lyra grins up at her, obviously pleased.

“Is that my two favourite kids in the whole world?” Arya calls out from down the hall.

“Yaya!” Lyra shouts, then prances down the hall.

“Quickly, daddy,” Will whispers urgently, jiggling up and down in excitement as Jon tries to pull his shoes off. “Yaya.”

Jon gets the second shoe off, but before Will can bolt off Jon says, “Say hi to Sansa.”

“Hi, Sansa,” Will says, patting her knee, and then he rushes after his sister, shouting, “Yaya!” as well.

Jon rolls his eyes after them.

“Will doing better?” Sansa asks, biting her lip. “He wasn’t in a mood because you were coming to me, was he?”

Jon shakes his head, pulling her by the waist so she’s pressed to his chest. “No, he just didn’t want to get dressed. I’ll let them watch some movies once they get bored of being around the adults, that’ll make him happy.”

Sansa curls her fingers around the lapel of his jacket, tugging him even closer.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Better now,” he replies, then lowers his head to catch her in a kiss.

Sansa melts against him, hooking her elbows around his neck as his arms tighten around her.

Jon pulls away first, but only to nuzzle his nose against hers, humming with contentment. “Mm, much better now.”

Sansa huffs a laugh, then gives him another quick kiss.

“How’d it go?” he asks, extracting himself from her arms so he can pull his jacket off.

“I was worried for nothing,” she tells him, smiling fondly as he shakes his hair after pulling his beanie off. “Just like you said.”

“Thank gods I didn’t turn out to be a liar,” he jokes.

“I’ll give you a tour as well,” Sansa says, leading him down the hall and toward their family. She glances over her shoulder at his silence, and his brows are pulled into a cute little frown.

“You gave me the tour a week ago,” he points out. Yeah, she had; as soon as she’d moved the last piece of furniture into place she asked him to come have a look on his way home from work, and he’d stopped by for long enough to see the house and fuck her into her bed, and then continued on back to his house to relieve Arya from kid duty.

Sansa lowers her voice, and with a sly grin says, “Yeah, but they don’t know that, and I reckon it’ll give us five to ten minutes alone.”

His face lights up into a mixture of humour and promise, and it shouldn’t be sexy but he somehow manages it. “I’ll follow your lead.”

They emerge into the living room to the greetings of her family. Will is in Robb’s arms, who is asking about Will’s day, while Lyra is positively buzzing at the prospect of meeting all these new people. The twins know Bran and Rickon, enough to recognise them but not enough to really remember them, and while they know Jeyne, they don’t know Meera, Jojen or Gendry.

Lyra flitters from one person to the next, encouraged by Arya who is holding her hand and telling Lyra a fun fact about each person she introduces her to.

With them all so thoroughly distracted, Sansa announces, “I’m gonna take Jon on the tour,” to which the group grumbles a collective assent, though with more enthusiastic sly grins than Sansa would like. Still, no one even notices that she leads him straight up the stairs instead of around downstairs, and Sansa looks back over her shoulder to see if anyone is watching.

No one is, so she tugs on Jon’s hand and pulls him up the last of the stairs.

“These are the bedrooms,” she says vaguely, jutting her thumb over her shoulder to one of them. “There, now I gave you the tour.”

Jon laughs, squeezing her hand. “You’re ridiculous, you know?” he says, such fondness in his voice that Sansa pauses outside her room.

“Well now we didn’t even lie,” she tells him.

“I am a terrible liar,” Jon agrees, then leans over to kiss her, backing her into her room as he does, the door clicking shut behind them. 

Against her mouth, he mumbles, “Reckon I have time to get you off?”

“Probably not,” she says, but pulls from him to lay back on the bed anyway. She drags him to her by the hem of his shirt so he sits between the cradle of her thighs, and then she guides him back to kissing her, content to just make out on her bed.

“I think I’ll try anyway,” Jon murmurs, pushing off from her a second later.

Jon drags the skirt of her dress up, bunching it at her waist, then hooks his fingers into the side of her panties and pulls them to the side. The hot flat of his tongue drags up her slit, and then he sets his mouth to her clit with an urgency that belies how little time they have. Jon pushes two fingers into her, curling them inside her immediately with no pretence of teasing her, and Sansa tilts her hips up because she knows this angle gets her there faster; sure enough, she comes a minute later, to her mild surprise. She really didn’t think he’d manage it in so little time.

Sansa spends only a moment basking in the afterglow, and then Jon lets her panties fall back in place and he pulls her dress back down.

“I don’t want to say I told you so . . .” he teases, grinning down at her.

Sansa rolls her eyes, then sits up, reaching for his belt buckle. “How much time do we have left, do you think?”

Jon watches her keenly, making no move to stop her, and Sansa moves deftly, pulling his zip down. 

“Depends on whether you want them to tease us mercilessly.”

Sansa hooks her ankle around the back of his knee, making him step closer. She braces her palms against his hips, fingers pulling the band of his briefs down, his cock hard and ready for her mouth.

Jon gathers her hair in his palms, bunching it against the base of her skulls as he cups her neck. Sansa takes the head of his cock in her mouth, looking up at him from beneath her lashes as she does so, and the ragged gasp of breath he intakes makes her lips twitch up into a smile.

“Gods, sweetheart, I won’t last long anyway with you looking at me like that.”

Sansa rewards him by taking his cock further into her mouth, flattening her tongue against the underside and circling her fingers around the base.

“Seven Hells, you’re perfect, you know that? You take my cock so well, Sans, so fucking good.”

He doesn’t press her to go faster, or deeper, but his hand does tighten in her hair, just enough that it tugs gently against her scalp and makes her moan around him, her eyes fluttering as the sensation of his pull makes her stomach flip.

“Fuck, Sansa,” Jon moans on a strangled breath. He tugs her hair again, more purposeful this time, and again a tingle shoots through her. “You like that, sweetheart?”

Sansa pulls her mouth from his cock, wiping her bottom lip with her thumb as she does, nodding up at him.

He glances to the door, lips pulling into a scowl. “Gods I wish we had more time. If we did, I’d get you to suck my cock and finger your pretty cunt at the same time. And then maybe I’d take you on your hands and knees, and pull your hair all the while. Would you like that, Sans? Do you want me to do that?”

She hears laughter filter in from upstairs, a forceful reminder of where they are and how little time they have, so Sansa spreads her mouth over his cock abruptly, taking him all the way. Jon’s hand tightens in her hair, painfully so, but then he loosens it, murmuring, “Sorry,” as he does.

Sansa circles her hand around the base of him, setting a quick pace with the twist of her hand that she’s come to learn that he likes over the past few weeks, and before long he groans, “Fuck, Sans, can I come in your mouth?”

She nods slightly, then hollows out her cheeks, finishing with a swirl of her tongue around his head; he comes with a groan, and Sansa swallows it all, mostly in an effort to keep everything clean.

Jon tucks himself back into his briefs after a moment, then falls onto the bed beside her, throwing his arm over his eyes.

“This was a bad idea,” he mumbles. “Now I just wanna go to sleep but we’ve got to entertain guests.”

“You can nap,” Sansa says, patting his stomach affectionately. “I’m sure that will raise no questions whatsoever.”

Jon pulls his phone out to check the time, then lets it drop back to the bed with a thud. “It’s been almost twenty minutes, I think they’re all gonna have questions anyway.”

“We better go down and face them, then,” Sansa murmurs, reaching over to kiss his cheek. “Before they make a comment that Lyra picks up on.”

Jon shoots up, taking Sansa’s hand as he does. “Gods, I already can’t answer half her questions.”

Sansa catches herself in the mirror on the way out, and immediately stops. She can’t go out like this, they’ll know with one glance. Her hair is the worst of it, so she takes a detour into her ensuite to wrap it into a bun. When she comes back, Jon has straightened his clothes and ruffled his hair, and Sansa is sure this is as good as it’s going to get. It’s their own fault for acting like this, anyway.

Although Sansa will happily take the excuse that they need to take any spare time they can because of the twins, the truth is just that she’s insatiably horny for him. She’s never in her life had sex as good as this; or any good at all, really, and she’s just making up for lost time. Though perhaps not really, because she’s pretty sure she’d want him this much no matter her past.

Jon leads them back down the stairs, a few steps ahead of her, and when they get back down there, Sansa _knows_ the only reason the group isn’t giving them shit is because of the twins. They still get a lot of sly looks, and Sansa tries to let them brush off of her, because this was her choice, but she still shrinks back a little. They all mean well, it’s just light teasing, but it’s a little much.

Jon sits himself next to Robb, and Will scrambles over from Robb and back to his father.

“I’m gonna get a drink, anyone want anything?” Sansa asks, desperate to avoid more knowing glances.

“Sansa, do you have juice?” Lyra asks from her place beside Arya.

“I think so. Should we go check?”

Lyra slips from her chair, padding her feet and following Sansa into the kitchen. She stands in front of Sansa as she opens the door, peering up into the fridge.

“Here’s some apple juice,” Sansa says, pulling it from the door.

“That’s my _favourite_ juice,” Lyra informs her, following Sansa and watching as she gets a cup. “Dad and Will like orange juice, but I think it’s too bitter. Now we can team up against them and dad will always buy apple juice.”

Sansa pauses for a second, wondering if she should comment on that, but decides against it. She wants this to be natural, and if this is what Lyra is thinking, then Sansa doesn’t want to give her doubts.

“Apple juice _is_ much better,” Sansa agrees, pouring her a cup. “Do you like fresh juice?”

Lyra stares up at her thoughtfully, then rounds the counter to sit up on the chair underneath the bench. “Well, I like it when it’s red apple. Green apples are also too bitter. Dad says that they’re better for you, but I think he’s lying because that doesn’t make any sense. Why would green ones be better?”

Sansa laughs a little at Lyra’s serious face. “I think he probably just prefers green ones, that’s why he said that.”

Lyra sighs in exasperation. “I knew he was lying. He’s such a terrible liar. Hey Sansa, could you come over here?”

Sansa pushes the apple juice over to Lyra, then rounds the counter to stand in front of her. Lyra reaches up to her shoulder, patting it gently.

“Why did you put your hair up?” She asks.

Sansa is sure that her face flames bright red; there’s no way she can say the real reason.

“Uh, I just wanted it out of my face,” Sansa mumbles.

“I like it when it’s out,” Lyra informs her, then dons a much more serious face. “It makes you look like Ariel.”

“Ariel?” Sansa questions, reaching up to touch her bun. “Does it?”

“Yes,” Lyra says primly, patting her shoulder again. “It does.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon drops his gaze down the length of her body again and can’t help but wet his lips in anticipation. He takes both hands gently in one of his, then lifts her arms above her head.
> 
> He wraps the belt around her wrists, and goes to thread it through the bars, but she says, “Not to the headboard, please.”
> 
> Jon slides the end of the belt through the buckle, encompassing just her hands, and pulls it tight. Both their headboards in Winterfell are solid and don’t have the option of keeping her hands in place, and Jon doesn’t mind that she doesn’t want to take this opportunity to tie them in place now. If it’s too much, it’s too much. 
> 
> “That okay?” He asks as he tugs once more on the leather.
> 
> Her breathing has picked up with his tug, her skin prickling with goosebumps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here’s some cute photos of me on my trek, and also bundled up to write](https://www.instagram.com/p/B7K5nGahezN/?igshid=1j71k5u5tl4h2)
> 
> Thank you SO much to everyone for following this story. I’ve loved every second of it. The sequel is well underway (as well as a v kinky one shot 🙈), and I’ve already made this a series so you can subscribe if you want and not miss them when i start posting! 
> 
> So much love to every single one of you, and I’ll see y’all very soon. Xxx

_One Year Later_

Jon presses his palm to his forehead, trying to catch his breath. Sansa lays beside him, panting herself, hand held to her chest and staring at the ceiling.

“Gods, Jon,” she murmurs, draping her arm over his slick chest. “We need to come away more often.”

Jon huffs a laugh, rolling over onto his side to face her.

They’ve not even been at the cabin an hour yet, but as soon as they’d unpacked the car he’d taken her to the master and had his way with her. He probably wouldn’t have been able to wait even that long if they hadn’t pulled the car over on the drive here so she could ride him in the front seat.

He feels a bit like a rowdy teenager, but it’s been a few weeks since he last got to be alone with her.

The holiday season tends to take his time, and he’s sorely missed her.

“It would have been good to have more than the one night,” he agrees.

Sansa glances to the clock on the bedside. “It’s eleven now, and we don’t have to leave until three tomorrow. We can fit a _lot_ of sex into that.”

“I hadn’t planned on doing anything else.” To prove his point, he reaches for her chin and draws her in to another fierce kiss.

Sansa chuckles against his mouth and pushes against his chest. “Slow down or else I’ll not get the mileage out of you that I want.”

Jon pouts at her, and she laughs again, pressing her hand into his face and pushing him away.

“Okay then, _I_ need a moment,” she corrects. It brings a grin to his lips, because he spent a pretty solid amount of time with his head between her legs. It had been a point of pride, because she’d not come in the car on the way here, and despite how adamantly she’d said it didn’t matter, that the space was small and movement was limited, he _needed_ to make up for it. “You go start the fire.”

“What are you gonna do?” he asks, pushing up from the bed.

“Like I said, I need a moment.”

Jon leaves her to it, and does as instructed and starts the fireplace in the cozy living room. He snacks on an apple while he’s there, because he’s going to need the energy, and when he makes his way back into the bedroom Sansa has taken off the bra and shirt he’d not bothered to remove earlier, and is laying naked on the covers, his belt laid out beside her. 

Oh _fuck_ yes.

They’ve done this a few times before, on Sansa’s request, though not nearly as often as Jon would like. It can be difficult to find enough uninterrupted time for a game like this, but when they do they take as much advantage of it as they can.

Jon slips the belt from the bed, gaze sliding down her body and then back up. She’s a masterpiece always, but especially like this, naked and eager for him.

“Yellow for it’s almost too much, red for stop immediately,” Jon says, as he always does. Their safe words are simple and always repeated, and despite the fact that anything with his belt isn’t going to be too intense, he likes to say it anyway. With Sansa’s past, Jon is never sure whether what he might want to do will be too much, and sometimes Sansa doesn’t either; and some days something might be okay, and another it scares her. Having this ritual beforehand makes it easier on them both, because Jon knows that she’ll say if he goes too far, and Sansa knows that she has to say if he goes too far.

“Yellow for it’s almost too much, red for stop immediately,” Sansa repeats. With it, she holds her hands out to him, wrists side by side.

Jon drops his gaze down the length of her body again and can’t help but wet his lips in anticipation. He takes both hands gently in one of his, then lifts her arms above her head.

He wraps the belt around her wrists, and goes to thread it through the bars, but she says, “Not to the headboard, please.”

Jon slides the end of the belt through the buckle, encompassing just her hands, and pulls it tight. Both their headboards in Winterfell are solid and don’t have the option of keeping her hands in place, and Jon doesn’t mind that she doesn’t want to take this opportunity to tie them in place now. If it’s too much, it’s too much. 

“That okay?” He asks as he tugs once more on the leather.

Her breathing has picked up with his tug, her skin prickling with goosebumps.

“Yes,” she breathes. He rewards her by running his fingertips down the underside of her arm, brushing them slightly over her breast and then back up her arm.

Jon guides her fingers closed around the bars of the headboard. “Hold here,” he instructs, and then, knowing how much she likes his commanding voice, continues, “Don’t let go, Sansa.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, then nods slowly. “Yes, sir,” she replies softly.

His cock twitches at the mere word, and Jon knows he’s going to drag this out for as long as they both can stand.

Jon catches her chin in his fingers, his grip firm on her jaw, and leans down for a searing kiss.

“Good,” he says against her mouth when he’s had his fill. “Now, spread your legs for me, sweetheart. Let me see your pretty cunt.”

“So,” Jon starts, dragging his knuckles up her spine. He pauses for a moment, to follow the path of his fingers with his lips. Sansa flicks her hair over her shoulder, twisting it in her fist so that she can peer over her shoulder at him without it being in the way. “My lease ends in June.”

She knows very well when it ends. Jon had renewed this year past after they’d made the decision that it wasn’t time.

“I know it’s still six months away, but –“

“You want to move in with me, Jon Snow?” Sansa teases, licking her lips.

“I do,” he says with a soft smile. “But only if you’re ready,” 

Sansa hesitates for a second, then rolls over to face him. Jon has a nervous look on his face, as if he’s unsure about what she’ll answer, which seems like the most ridiculous notion to Sansa because of _course_ she wants them to move in with her. But it’s about more than just the two of them.

“Are the kids ready?” Sansa questions, reaching out to take his hand.

“That’s why I’ve brought it up so early,” he admits, thumb running circles over the back of her hand. “So we’ve a lot of time to get them used to the idea. But I think they’ll be happy.”

“I don’t want to sell the house,” Sansa tells him. “But if you don’t want to move in there, I could lease it out.”

Jon surges forward, cupping her face with his hands and kissing her deeply. “I’d love to move in there with you.”

“So, it’s settled?” Sansa clarifies, because she’s constantly astounded at how easy everything is with Jon. “You’ll all move in in June?”

“It’s settled,” Jon agrees, then leans in kiss her again.

When he pulls back, Sansa nudges her nose against his, and then with a wicked smile says, “Now you’ve just got to work up the courage to ask me to marry you.”

They’ve already discussed the prospect, of course, when Jon had asked her whether she’d ever want to marry again, and she’d asked him the same; at the time, they’d both agreed that it wasn’t time for that yet, that they needed to build up to it a bit more. But Sansa knows that, one day, they’ll get married. It’s just a matter of when.

Though now that he and the kids are moving in, Sansa can’t imagine it’s that far off into the future; which is why she couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease him a little.

“Is that a challenge?” Jon questions, raising a brow at her. “Because I’d ask you right now.”

“Well that’s not very romantic,” Sansa teases, “No wining and dining? Not even a ring?”

She means it all as a joke, because they’ve only been dating a year, even if it had been serious right away and Sansa feels like she’s known him her whole life; but when Jon answers it takes her breath away. “Well, I’m not asking you now because I do intend to wine and dine you when I do, but you’re mad if you think I’ve not got a ring.”

“Do you really?” Sansa whispers, all trace of teasing gone.

He softens, too, then stands from the bed to rummage through his bag. He pulls out his wallet, then digs around in it for a moment, and when he produces a diamond ring Sansa sits up in bed, mouth parted.

“You keep it in your wallet?” She asks. She didn’t know men actually did that. It seems like something from a movie or a cheap romance novel, and it’s so different to her experience that it seems unrealistic.

But she should know better than to underestimate Jon’s ability to be thoroughly and unassumingly romantic.

“It’s been in there for about six months,” he says quietly, coming to sit back on the bed, holding the ring out between them. “It was my mother’s. She never got married, but she got it from her own parents and she wore it every day. She left it to me in the hopes that I’d use it to marry someone who brought me as much happiness as her parents brought each other.”

Jon wets his lips, thumb running nervously over the circle of the gold band, then says quietly, “I never gave it to Ygritte. I think I always knew I was waiting for you.”

Her heart beating rapidly in her chest, Sansa reaches out, unsure if she should touch the ring, unsure if this is real. She instead lets her hand circle his wrist, trying to catch her breath as she does. Even when she’d been teasing him, she hadn’t expected this.

“Jon . . .” She starts, but has no idea how to finish.

“I am going to wine and dine you, Sansa Stark,” Jon says quietly, but with a gentle determination to his eyes. “And once we live together and the kids are okay with everything and understand what it means, I’ll ask you again, the way you deserve.”

Sansa’s hand tightens around his wrist. She’s completely overcome with emotion, having once been so sure she’d never get this.

“But for now . . .” He holds the ring out slightly further, pinched between two fingers. “Will you marry me?”

She can’t even answer she’s so choked with emotion, tears welled in her eyes and lodged in her throat. So she just surges forward, catching him around the nape so she can well and truly kiss him.

“That’s a yes, right?” He mumbles against her lips.

Sansa pulls back with a watery laugh and nods. “Of course it is.”

Jon takes her hand in his, glancing up at her for a moment and then back down to her hand. Her eyes follow the movement of his fingers as he slides the ring on her, completely enraptured.

“Just for now,” he murmurs. “I’ll need it back for my real proposal.”

Sansa laughs around her tears, eyes caught on the ring even as she cups his face. “This is real to me,” she promises, then leans in to kiss him again.

Sansa wakes early the next morning, much earlier than Jon. She’s tried, the two of them only having gone to bed a few hours before, but she feels restless for some reason. She twists and turns a few times, but then Jon starts to stir awake so she gets up and leaves him to sleep. He’s certainly earned the sleep in.

Sansa salvages the dying fire in the pit, she and Jon having only just abandoned it, then she curls up on the lounge with a cup of tea and her phone, greeted by a lockscreen of she and Jon and the kids.

They’ve only come away for the night, out here to pick up the kids’ Christmas present, and even though it’s nice to spend time together, just the two of them, she already misses Will and Lyra and wants to see them. She imagines that Jon is the same, if not worse. She’s very sure that they’re having a great time with Theon, the sitter Jon hired to replace Sansa and who the kids have come to love (even though it had taken them some time to warm up to him, still attached to Sansa’s time with them as they were). But she still misses them.

Sansa scrolls mindlessly through social media for about an hour, and when the sun finally starts to peek over the mountains her eyes are feeling heavy again. She falls asleep there, and when she wakes again it’s to Jon draping a blanket over her. She’s not cold, but the blanket is comfortable, so she snuggles further into it and goes back to sleep.

When she wakes again, Jon is frying breakfast. The smell of it draws her into the kitchen, and she wraps her arms about his waist and drops a kiss between his shoulder blades. Jon puts the bowl of eggs he’s scrambling down, then catches her hand in his, his thumb running over the knuckle beneath her new ring.

He spins in the circle of her arms to give her a sweet kiss, thumb still sweeping over the ring.

“Why’d you come out here this morning?” He asks, pulling back slightly to look at her with furrowed brows.

Sansa lets her hands settle against his hips, then rests her head against his chest. He pillows his own on top, his arms winding around her waist.

“I was just restless, and I didn’t want to wake you. I didn’t think I’d get back to sleep.”

“I wouldn’t have minded,” he tells her, chest rumbling beneath her cheek.

“You needed the sleep,” Sansa teases, “I think I wore you out last night.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining about getting some sleep,” Jon replies, a sulky edge of insult to his tone.

“I did need it,” Sansa says to placate him. “But we don’t have to leave until three today, so we’ve still got a lot of time.”

“I’ll be using every second of it,” Jon promises, tilting her head by her chin to kiss her.

Her stomach grumbling interrupts them, and she pulls back with a smile. “Food first.”

“Yeah, shit, I hope it’s not burning,” Jon says, extracting himself from her with a worried glance to the stove.

Sansa muffles a laugh behind her palm, then clears her throat to say with a straight face, “Do you need some help?”

“Just set the table, love, then have a seat. I want to make my new – if temporary - fiancé breakfast.”

At the word fiancé, Sansa surges forward to turn him around and kiss him again with an intensity that startles Jon.

“The food,” he mumbles against her lips.

“I know,” she says, pulling back with a big smile. “Fiancé.”

Jon smiles too, but turns back to the stove with an adorable determination. Sansa takes the hint and leaves him to it, and sets the table with plates and cutlery. He’s finished cooking by the time she’s done, and so she helps him bring the food out.

Before they sit down to eat, Sansa bunches Jon’s sweater at the waist and brings him in for a kiss.

“I love you,” she whispers. “You changed my life, you know?”

He shakes his head, and gives her another sweet kiss, then softly disagrees, “No, Sans, I just got watch you change your own.”

When they get to the breeder, Sansa immediately knows she’s in trouble.

As soon as Jon puts the car in park, Sansa lays her hand on his arm and turns him. “Jon,” she says seriously, “I want them _all_.”

Jon laughs, shaking his head at her fondly.

“We’re here for one,” he reminds her. “Don’t get invested in more than Ghost.”

“It’s too late, I already am,” Sansa informs him, then slides out of his Range Rover.

She hears Jon laugh again, but then she gets distracted by a rush of dogs running towards them through the snow.

“Jon!” She says in strangled voice as one husky pup jumps up on her in excitement. “I don’t know how I ever thought I could stop at one.”

“We couldn’t handle more than one,” Jon says, but looks thoroughly enamoured himself as he kneels down to pat a larger dog.

A young man rushes out, shouting instructions at the barking dogs. Another, older man follows, much slower and with more precise words shouts at the dogs. They back away, and Sansa is both impressed at their discipline and disappointed she’s not patting them anymore.

The young man reaches them first, sticking a hand out to greet Jon. “I’m Jory Cassel. Jon Snow, yes?”

“Aye, and this is my partner, Sansa.”

Sansa shakes the young man’s hand, and the introductions are repeated with the man’s father, Rodrick.

Rodrick leads them from the driveway and into the shed that holds the kennels, talking all the while.

“We were excited about your interest in Ghost. We got the whole litter about four months back, and we’ve had trouble selling them. They’re half wolf, as you know.”

“Are they?” Sansa asks, the first she’s hearing of it.

“They’re very well behaved,” Rodrick rushes to say. “Actually some of the best behaved pups we’ve had through here. Huskies take a lot to train, as you know, but these six are remarkably docile. But the fact they’re half-wolf has turned a lot of people off. They won’t even come look at them once they find out.”

When they come across the six of them, Sansa’s heart instantly melts. They’re all absolutely adorable, a mix of colours, and certainly larger than huskies usually are at this age. Despite it, they’re like Rodrick says: remarkably docile. They’re still puppies, of course, and so yip with excitement and crowd around their feet, but as soon as Rodrick tells them to get down, they do.

Sansa’s never seen _any_ pups so well trained this early, and she already knows she’s set on getting them all.

She just has to convince Jon.

“This one is Ghost,” Rodrick says, bending down to pick up the smallest, a white one with red eyes. “An albino. Cute though, no?”

“So cute,” Sansa gushes, though she’s looking at the pups still at her feet.

One in particular has captured her attention, a grey one that is sitting quietly by her feet, staring up at her with big eyes.

Sansa scoops her into her arms, patting her between the ears and nuzzling her nose into the pup’s head.

“Jon,” she starts, looking up at him.

“Sansa,” he replies with exasperation. “We can’t get more than one.”

“Well . . . _You_ can’t get more than one. I could have one at my house. And there are four others! My siblings _love_ dogs.”

Jon hesitates, then shakes his head, looking up to the ceiling. “That’s up to you,” he says. “If you think they’ll take them, then sure. But we really can’t have _six_ dogs, Sans.”

Despite how much she wants to have six, she knows he’s right.

Sansa pulls her phone from her pocket, still determined, and while holding the puppy in her arms, she calls her siblings, one by one.

One by one they agree with excitement, even when she tells them the dogs are half wolf, and when she turns to Jon with triumph, he’s just looking at her fondly.

“What?” She asks, still grinning.

“Nothing,” he says, shrugging. “I should have known you’d be able to convince them.”

“So you’re taking all six?” Rodrick asks, like he can’t believe this turn of events. “Really?”

“Aye, we are,” Jon confirms, and Sansa beams at him, holding the girl in her arms up higher so she can bury her face in her fur again.

“You’re so cute,” Sansa coos at her. “Such a good little lady. Jon, I want this one.”

Jon chuckles. “Alright, my love. She’s yours.”

In the New Year, Sansa takes Lady around to the Snow house for the first time.

All the pups have settled in with their new families remarkably well, and every time Sansa is woken up by Lady whining at her, she smiles.

But Lady hadn’t met the kids yet, and while Ghost has behaved very well with them, they need to introduce Lady to Will and Lyra sooner rather than later, to get her used to them.

When Sansa pulls up to the curb outside their house, Jon is standing in the driveway, Will and Lyra playing in the front yard with Ghost. When Lyra catches sight of them she runs over to Jon, grabbing his hand and grinning widely.

Sansa hitches her hands beneath Lady’s front arms, setting her paws against Sansa’s chest so she can look her in the eye. Lady wiggles around, attempting to lick Sansa’s face, but Sansa keeps her away so she can focus on the task at hand.

“Now, Lady,” Sansa starts sternly, trying to grab her eye, “that’s my kids out there. You have to be gentle, alright?”

Lady lolls her tongue, like she’s smiling, and Sansa laughs.

“Yeah, of course you will be.”

Sansa sets her back down on the passenger seat to put her phone and wallet in her handbag, and Lady yips with impatience, paw scratching at the window as she looks out at Jon and Sansa’s family.

Jon is still holding Lyra’s hand, who is waving frantically at them, and Will is still playing with Ghost and laughing so loudly that Sansa can hear it from here.

Lady paws at the window again, and Sansa reaches over to scratch between her eyes, catching Jon’s eye as she does. He gives her a warm, lovely smile, and Sansa’s heart flutters in her chest, as it always does.

“Yeah, Lady,” Sansa says fondly, still looking at her three favourite people in the world. “Me too.”


End file.
